Cool and Potentially Wow! A Bunch of Enhancements Available Now and Coming Soon to Bing Maps
UPDATE: After Microsoft/Bing made the announcements that follow below, Greg Sterling points out that Google announced some new mapping features via Google Maps Labs.
Greg writes:
Google is now the incumbent, the leader and Microsoft is seeking to outdo Google and gain attention with cool features and new functionality.
Microsoft is announcing some cool new features in Bing Maps today. The map service’s revamp in December already made it more visually impressive than Google Maps, its established competitor, and these new features build on that lead.
The feature that’s now live in a preview version is called Streetside Photos. It pulls images from photo-sharing site Flickr that have been geotagged and approved for reproduction, and overlays them on the existing streetside imagery. So when you look at a location on Bing, you’re not just seeing the default photo set that Microsoft has created, but hopefully a whole range of photos from Flickr. That might be useful, for example, if you want to see what a neighborhood looks like at different times of the day.
Bing also announced that in the near future, it would allow people using StreetSide to look “up” virtually and see what’s in the sky:
From the Bing Maps Blog Post #1:
But we’re not just stopping at the street. Today, we’re also excited to demonstrate integration with the WorldWide Telescope, a project out of Microsoft Research. Once launched, you will be able to walk outside in Streetside mode, look up, and see what’s above – way above – right now where you’re standing. Constellations come to life as you pan – you can even set the time of day so you can see what you’ll see at 9pm – great for exploring with your daughter to get her ready for what she’ll see when the sun goes down.
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