Maps

The Bing Maps service recently received a major update this week with a slew of new features including draggable routes, a zoom bar, command parsing, embeddable maps, new navigation, and more. The updated Bing Maps also loads faster thanks to a reduced homepage size (it went from from 678KB to…

Bing just unveiled a number of updates now available in the Bing Maps service. At Microsoft’s San Francisco campus, select journalists and other attendees were given a first look at the new Bing Maps Beta on Wednesday. Included in the update were a number of new features including streetside views,…

If you’re a Twilight fan, then you’re likely anxiously awaiting this week’s opening of New Moon, the latest movie to detail the events taking place in Stephanie Meyer’s vampire-themed saga about a human/vampire romance. In the meantime, you can gear up for the big event with a exclusive online…

The Bing logo was recently spotted gracing the side of a rocket ship at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. No, it’s not the start of some inter-galactic advertising campaign for Microsoft’s new search engine, it was the result of a new partnership with an imagery company called DigitalGlobe.…

Chris Pendleton reports that the web site Weather Central has just launched a new beta community site called ReportStorms.com. This crowd-sourced weather watching community lets you report on the storms in your area by right-clicking on the map provided and entering in the storm info. On the…

As we enter into hurricane season, there’s no shortage of sites and tools for monitoring the latest news, viewing satellite imagery, and getting other storm-related information online. As I write this, I’m watching as Hurricane Gustav pounds the still-recovering Gulf Coast of Louisiana and already…

Back in February, Microsoft acquired a company called Caligari mainly for their 3D modeling and animation software, trueSpace. As of now, trueSpace is available for download – for free. With trueSpace, you can create high-resolution models, landscapes, buildings, and more for Virtual Earth and Live…

There’s a new video series available on our sister site, Channel 9, that delves into the tech behind Virtual Earth. The series is called “Behind the Maps,” and it will show you how the data and imagery in Virtual Earth goes through the whole process from camera to web and beyond. You’ll learn about…

Big news! Chris Pendleton is reporting that Ask.com has decided to forgo their mapping service in favor of the Virtual Earth platform. If you go to maps.ask.com now, you’ll see a Virtual Earth map. Chris notes that this choice is common among portal sites who realize that the upkeep involved in…

The Virtual Earth team has just launched a new program called GoVE which lets state and local governments, municipalities, and aerial photographers share their own imagery with Microsoft and get it published on Virtual Earth. After checking out maps.live.com to verify that the imagery they have it…