Virtual Earth Available! But does it sensor?

And I thought this wouldn't be released until Monday...

Don't know about the streets - seems accurate to me (well, for me anyway).

I'll admit Virtual Earth seems to offer some nifty features. I like the scroll ball, and the scratchpad/etc is very cool. However, what's up with the Location Sensor? (1) Why is it there, and (2) not a very smooth setup (I'd prefer an ActiveX control for IE).

The images seem to load very slowly (though I bet that'll be cleared up soon enough), and because of that the zoom animation (which would be cool) isn't quite so slick.

I'd like to slap MSN Virtual Earth silly for linking the "Drive To/From" links to Mapoint. Come on. Isn't that what Virtual Earth is for?

The zoom control is cool, too. The mouse wheel is very nice, but sluggish. One question - is there any way to hide the controls? Or how about move them around?

To the original poster: I see the White House here. And is this Area 51? (I just typed "Area 51, Nevada" into the location box). I do see there's no close up imagery, however.

Oh - just a note. The large pop-up boxes need some serious work. Sure, they're OK, but the window bar font is too small (and so is the rest of the text). The [X] to close is to small, and hard to see. I'd like a larger bar, and overall, a better box (perhaps copy the top bar with a slightly translucent box, although that might be hard to read).

Overall, quite nice.

I do have to say: Nice help documentation! Very, very nice. Screenshots good.

Oh - minor need. They NEED a something to list current location. I want to know where I am, dammit! Lat/long points would be good, etc. Just give me where I'm currently centered, or where I last searched. So I know I'm in a suburb of San Francisco and not Los Angeles.