Comment Feed for Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps (scobleizer on Channel 9)

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

Sammy Longarms — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 07:16:56 GMT

Steve Lombardi is so hot, I want to call him Poodle and pet him somewhere low.

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

AdamWhite81 — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 23:42:04 GMT

hi :) cool

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

jiggy — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 16:07:44 GMT

Do you think Microsoft virtual earth will ever be able to compete with Google's service?
Especially with them both being huge companies, and am I correct to assume Google has had more time to allow for growth than Microsoft!?

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

jiggy — Fri, 12 May 2006 22:03:18 GMT

Do you think Microsoft virtual earth will ever be able to compete with Google's service?

Especially with them both being huge companies, and am I correct to assume Google has had more time to allow for growth than Microsoft!?

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

jiggy — Fri, 12 May 2006 17:28:44 GMT

Do you think Microsoft virtual earth will ever be able to compete with Google's service?

Especially with them both being huge companies, and am I correct to assume Google has had more time to allow for growth than Microsoft!?

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

GISboy — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 02:45:16 GMT

well MSN acquired GeoTango on Christmas eve. GeoTango was owned by my GIS prof , Vincent Tao - a brilliant prof and entrepreneur. GeoTango had many patent algo like :

SilverEye, allows the rapid creation of 3D urban models from a single image.

Smart Digitizer is essentially a stand-alone tool for building GIS features: roads, rivers, hydrants, etc.

GlobeView has the ability to access data from a number of sources including servers supporting the Web Map Service Specification (WMS) from the Open Geospatial Consortium and Microsoft's own TerraServer.

So there is some competition with Google Earth in future.

As for my Prof, he is on leave (sabbastical) & having good vacation somewhere out there.:D

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

pimpinurmoma — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 19:33:16 GMT

i pimp ur (I need to watch my language) last night

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

pimpinurmoma — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 19:32:29 GMT

hi there
:(

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

just4ugirl — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 11:29:36 GMT

Ah ha," Virtual Earth" is so wonderful!:P

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

Charles.H.White — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 01:03:14 GMT

So far, I have found that Virtual Earth works well in Mozilla Firefox Version 1.0.2 running on my Mandrake Linux LE 10.2 box.

I tried it on Konqueror and it crashed.

Internet Explorer on Windows XP worked without any software issues but it sure is slow. I noticed the tiles not loading as I was zooming in or panning. It was pretty annoying to tell you the truth.

Google Maps can drill in a bit further than Virtual Earth can. Once you get to a certain point (below 150 yards) I get a picture of a camera with a slash through it indicating that I have zoomed to far. Google will let you zoom in as far as you can and still display images albeit blurry.

I don't think Microsoft has quite done it yet in terms of beating Google. I think they are definitely in the neighborhood though, but the UI is a tad clunky. Google is much simpler to use.

I am also a subscriber to Google Earth so I can tell you with pretty good accuracy that it is far more superior than Virtual Earth. Microsoft might want to consider that rich client after all if they intend to compete. Also, why bother with such limited data? Get the whole friggin world out there already. They bragged about the fact that they have been working with cartography for 10+ years but they come out with the US only? Someone is asleep at the wheel.

My main complaint right now is the clunky UI and the speed. did anyone notice that there is a limit on the scratch pad? I got an error saying that I had reached my maximum number of scratch pad entries. I think I only had 4 or 5. Anyone hear of a scroll bar? lol

Microsoft has done a pretty good job of reverse engineering what Google has done but they are not there yet. I say give it 6 months to a year before we see significant improvements. I hope to see those other features talked about in the taped interview soon.

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

Nata1 — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 19:01:39 GMT

Its here!

It works great in firefox, but I doubt safari integration is done yet

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

drylight — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 10:09:01 GMT

Is this ever going to work with Safari? At the moment it doesn't work. It's slow, contains errors and what does work is unresponsive. All this is seriously hyped and it doesn't even work. Check out the following site on how to do something that works across most browsers and operating systems: http://maps.google.com/ Seriously, if MS are going to release public items like this on to the internet, maybe there should be a sub-domain on the internet where MS/IE only stuff can be found. Other agnostic and standard friendly web sites can live in the rest of the web.

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

Eric Golpe — Sat, 23 Jul 2005 01:57:25 GMT

VIRTUAL EARTH MUST INCLUDE ALL SIGHTS WHERE CHANNEL 9 GUY HAS BEEN SPOTTED OR PHOTOGRAPHED BEFORE GOING LIVE. (I think the little guy is gonna be on the space shuttle soon, so these guys better get live yesterday... )

;)

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

yyy — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 10:22:07 GMT

Great :) Thanks a lot !

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

scobleizer — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 07:36:36 GMT

yyy: I talked with the Virtual Earth team today. Soon, soon. As soon as it's up, I'll post something on the home page of Channel 9.

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

yyy — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 19:02:01 GMT

Wow, thanks - I couldn't find this site in Google. I guess there's still no official due date. And I thought it'll be avilable for testing already...

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

Luciano Evaristo Guerche — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 17:27:40 GMT

I have been visiting http://www.virtualearth.com everyday, but it hasn't taken off so far. Does somebody out there might give me a clue on Virtual Earth's due date? Shouldn't this information be on Virtual Earth's web site?

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

yyy — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 16:25:52 GMT

This service is said to be launched in early July and it's already the middle of that month - has it already been launched? Is it open for public testing? If yes, can somebody post a link to the service?

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

mVPstar — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 14:11:26 GMT

You hear that MS! Do this and you'll make Beer28 happy. :)

mVPstar

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

moofish — Mon, 04 Jul 2005 18:43:31 GMT

I was just reading this news about Network conjestion information built into Google's map. I this this is great, I would like to see plug-ins so that if I wanted to see all of the wireless networks available then I could install the plugin and voila! I am especially interested in the history side of countrys and its regions, this would also be an excellent plug-in to have.

Also my last question still stands:

"How does that 45 angle work, form what nauticle direction is the camera facing. Is it flexible enough to pan 360deg round the building? How could it be justified to capture the best face of one building at the sacrafice of another?"

Can anyone help?

Samuel

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

rrakka — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 16:04:55 GMT

This work is really great and creative.
I have some suggestions, i dont know if this has been thought of.

I may not be a full time user of mappoint/streetsand trips sw, as i may wish to go out on weekends only. so ideally speaking i may end up using the sw i buy for what about 60 days an year.

If i'm a web user for suppose mappoint and not bought the mappoint sw, i should be able to zoom in and save the maps into my laptop as jpeg images so that i can use them offline.

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

dantheman82 — Sat, 28 May 2005 17:50:05 GMT

nik wrote:
ok, i take back some part of that scepticism after seeing the overlay view, as well as the navigation.. these guys have done a good job, I just think it should have been done a lot earlier. Ajax is only new as a term, as a technology is has been around for years..

Do keep in mind that Microsoft has excelled at working on the OS and on-built APIs that enable a whole bunch of developers to exercise their creativity in many different directions. By the way, Google Maps would not have been nearly as cool without XMLHTTP, which first appeared in IE 5+ and was coopted by Mozilla and put inside Firefox. The AJAX technology is in fact quite simple in ASP.NET, as has been demonstrated here:
http://www.objectgraph.com/dictionary/how.html

Google really has it easy, when they can simply customize a Linux distro (for them, OSS == free capital upon which to innovate) for their thousands of servers. And then they can build on top of the XMLHTTP framework that MS has put out years ago. And these "amazing" projects are simply some guy's 20% time contribution that percolated to the top. But they definitely ramp up the expectation with regard to simplicity and performance, which is a good thing for everyone.

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

C_W_Flink — Sat, 28 May 2005 14:41:22 GMT

How does it compare with NASA's WorldWind....

WorldWind runs circles around Keyhole viewer (Google) on my desktop....

I especially like the ability to switch instantly between photo and topological maps.... I can see a terrain item I'm interested in and then switch (if I'm looking at the US) to a USGS map with roads, navigational aids (if in coastal waters, etc.)

Extremely responsive with 3D graphics support... dog on old systems with limited graphics accellerators.

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

Wil — Fri, 27 May 2005 20:36:44 GMT

It should be interesting to see whether users can develop GIS-like client-side apps for Virtual Earth and for the Google Maps / Keyhole product, without having a "real" GIS, by using only AJAX. If that is possible, it must be painful for MS to watch, given that for years now (ever since the Netscape wars) the mantra there has been "Windows good, browser bad". That's why IE has been stagnant, with just one security Band-aid after another applied to it, instead of being completely re-worked, as so many users wanted. The philosophy of MS has been "rich clients" (and hence "rich MS"!) requiring Windows, Active X (or now .NET), etc., not browser-hosted scripts. After all, if your apps run in Firefox, who cares about the OS?

Re: Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

nik — Fri, 27 May 2005 09:34:55 GMT

ok, i take back some part of that scepticism after seeing the overlay view, as well as the navigation.. these guys have done a good job, I just think it should have been done a lot earlier. Ajax is only new as a term, as a technology is has been around for years..