Comments on: Bing Maps launches a ton of new features

By: Bing leaves beta, adds lots of data

Bing leaves beta, adds lots of data — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:30:20 +0000

[...] in the US with just a few people, and slowing rolling out to everyone in the next few weeks. We talked about this version when it first entered beta, and it’s really quite [...]

By: MapQuest launches its own StreetView clone: “360 View”

MapQuest launches its own StreetView clone: “360 View” — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:15:00 +0000

[...] mickey on December 14, 2009 Less than two weeks after Microsoft launched “Streetside” imagery to compete with Google’s StreetView, MapQuest has done the same. They call it “360 [...]

By: Nathanael Lawrence

Nathanael Lawrence — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:46:42 +0000

Make that timecode 44:40 through 46:40.

By: Nathanael Lawrence

Nathanael Lawrence — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:43:43 +0000

Something like what I hope to see sooner rather than later in both Bing Maps 3D and in Google Earth can be seen demonstrated by Microsoft Researcher, Bill Chen, in this video from 45:40 to 46:40:
( mms://wm.microsoft.com/ms/research/events/facultysummit08/16080.asf )

Note that this feature has never been publicly released, even though it is shown here at the date of 2008 07 29.

By: Nathanael Lawrence

Nathanael Lawrence — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:23:35 +0000

As far as the Panoramio photos goes, I actually meant geo-aligned or geo-embeded, rather than just geo-tagged. That is to say, I’m looking for the photos to be fully registered in 3D space like the Bird’s Eye Photos in Bing Maps 3D, rather than just plastered flat against the screen, regardless of what angle I have Google Earth tilted at.

Google is clearly using automatic registration on user photos that have been geotagged to the same area, and one would assume that they have also processed this against their Street View panoramas, so coordinates and orientation should be automatically solved for beyond a user’s (questionable) manual placement of their photo(s) on the map. This is not surprising at all after considering that Noah Snavely and Steve Seitz of the University of Washington’s and Microsoft Research’s collaborative Photo Tourism project spoke at a Google Tech Talk back in 2007 (see ‘Navigating the World’s Photographs’ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5778605234686979545# ) and that Google has since funded further research between UW and MSR (see ‘Building Rome in a Day’ http://grail.cs.washington.edu/rome/ )

The question is why we see the results of this automatic registration in Google Maps, but not Google Earth.

By: Microsoft teams with Navteq to expand their Streetside coverage

Microsoft teams with Navteq to expand their Streetside coverage — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:49:30 +0000

[...] mickey on December 7, 2009 When Microsoft launched Streetside a few days ago (a direct competitor to Google’s StreetView), I wondered how they could possibly catch up [...]

By: mickey

mickey — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:54:33 +0000

“Flash vs. Silverlight”
Fair statement, but Flash has a 97-98% install rate, while Silverlight is only around 50%. For many people, Silverlight would be a new install but Flash would not.

“Panoramio photos”
You can find most of them in the layers under “Geographic Web” –> “Panoramio”. Not sure about Picasa Web, though.

“Plugin in maps”
I agree. I keep waiting for a button to appear on the main maps site to flip to earth view. Not sure what the holdup is with that.

By: Nathanael Lawrence

Nathanael Lawrence — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:36:49 +0000

Perhaps a more direct comparison would be to say that Google makes you download Flash to use Street View and Microsoft makes you download Silverlight to use Streetside.

By the way, have you heard any rumours as to when Google will be integrating the geotagged User Photos from Panoramio and Picasa Web into Google Earth. They’ve been in Google Maps for a while, so I was very surprised to not find them in Earth.

Also… the Google Earth plugin has been around for closing in on two years now. When are they going to introduce it as an option in Google Maps, for crying out loud?