RSSMicrosoft Adds 26 Terabytes to Virtual Earth
By the Betanews Staff | Published July 6, 2007, 11:27 AM
Microsoft on Thursday pushed its biggest update to Virtual Earth in the history of the mapping service, adding 26 terabytes of 3-D and birds-eye imagery. A large amount of the data is for a new feature the company calls "hill shaded," which displays the topography of a location.
Microsoft has additionally added new cities to its list of aerial imagery, with most featuring textured 3-D buildings and cityscapes. Canadian cities Hamilton, Quebec, Toronto have been added (Montreal will arrive next month), along with Toulouse France, Eastbourne UK in Europe. In the United States, a slew of cities have received updates, including New Orleans, Brooklyn and Nashville.
Great, so they cover the UK and North America in great detail. That's 99% of the world taken care of. Good work!
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|Bit more ariel stuff for the UK would be nice :D
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|The Birdseye view is better than anything i have scene before, which includes Google Earth, and both Yahoo and Mapquest satellite views. If i have a complaint, its that its a little slow running on my pc. And tends to lock it up if i navigate to fast. I have a 3ghz proc. and 512 meg of ram.
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|I have NO idea how they had satellite images in the 10's, but I just looked up my restaurant that I only live 2 blocks from, and everything West of our Main St. was fields. My house was built in 1912 and wasn't on the map, my restaurant was built in 1938 and it wasn't on the map. I said that everything West of Main St. was fields, right? Well, our University was founded in 1908, and there's nothing but fields where the University *should* be.
So, my big question is this: How is it even possible to have a map from 23 miles above that is possibly from 1908 or before? They didn't even have *airplanes* then, let alone the ability to take photos from that high!
I can zoom in to no closer than 300 yards, and I recognize the terrain, some of the oldest buildings that still stand on our 'Historic Downtown Main St.' are there, but most everything around Main St. is fields!!! I know I'm not in the wrong location...I've lived here for 35 years and know my town.
Google is at least showing maps of this area from the last decade.
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|For Toronto they have bought the same images as Google already has. But, for Greater Toronto Area they still don't have high resolution details.
Not good for us Torontonians - will not visit VE before I read about new update. And even then, Google Maps will probably be already 1 step ahead.
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|"Eastbourne UK"
Great; it'll show all the old people's homes.
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