Some significant improvements have been made to the maps.live.com service, and they’ve been pushed out just a few hours ago. If you’ve been heads-down and haven’t had the opportunity to poke around the product a bit and check out some of the great new work that’s been done, I think you’ll be impressed, and I can’t wait to see this rolled out on an even bigger scale. Here are just a few examples:
- 3D : Improved world realism by ‘densifying’ city data with much richer textures and 3D trees.
try: Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, Dallas - App: Supporting Safari 3 and IE 8 (try using Google Maps in IE 8 native mode).
- Collections: Use MSR’s MapCruncher technology to take your own personal map and overlay it anywhere on earth, then upload it to the collections database to share with the world through search.
try: Crunch sample including Seattle Transit - Directions: Traffic based routing now uses MSR’s ClearFlow technology to predict side street traffic based on what is happening in the live feed we get from traffic.comtry: SeaTac to UW.
- Geocoding: With reverse geocoding support it is now easy to get an address from anywhere on the map, Just right-click on a building in the map and choose 1-click directions or drive to… and you’ll see a real address as the end point.
- Platform: JavaScript API support for all our new features, including Safari 3 and IE 8 compatibility.
- Search: Now including new review data from Zagat and Yelp, two of the best sources for restaurant review information, directly in our reviews listing.
try: Reviews of Papa John’s in Redmond
I love where this is going :) really! It’s things like this that bring the fun back to online demos. By the way, if you haven’t installed Virtual Earth yet, now is the time to do so (the map will prompt you as soon as you hit the 3D button). Tip: hold down the control key as you move the mouse, it’ll allow you to pan around.
If you want to know more about this update, the API update or the full list of released features, head over to the VE Platform Blog.
