Trulia launched their new home searching tool dubbed " Snapshot " as a new and unique way to search for real estate. I have to say, this site IS ABSOLUTELY SICK. For you non-Gen Xers and younger, that's a good thing. I would say it's "disgusting" but only post Gen Yers would get it. Seriously. UX people - take some notes, because you're about to get schooled on how to change the game when it comes to building an interface. First, enter a city/state. Okay, very simple. That alone is alluring - simplicity. After the query, you'll be presented with what looks like a radar chart of locations (I searched around San Diego, CA , of course). You can click on any one of the listings over the Virtual Earth...
We sent out another customer/developer satisfaction survey today. We'd love to here what you have to say - good, bad or other - so feel free to complete the Virtual Earth Developer Satisfaction Survey . Here's the actual text that was sent around: As a Virtual Earth platform developer, your opinions are very important to us! We’re conducting a satisfaction survey and would like you to evaluate the level and quality of services you’re receiving from Microsoft. This information will be used to identify areas where we are doing well and where we need to make improvements. Also, your feedback will help us prioritize future Virtual Earth feature development and service enhancements. This survey is...
I stumbled across a Virtual Earth mashup dubbed The Top 100 Iconic Photo Locations Map Room from Canon and Microsoft and realized there's a whole contest behind this thing (details below). First, the mashup! Once you get to the site, you can select one of five "quadrants." Yes, I know quad means four, but they broke up the US into 4 quadrants and then call the fifth "other" which means the rest of the world. So, you can select a quadrant (such as The Southwestern Quadrant) and explore locations such as Big Sur, Golden Gate Bridge or Highland District of Nob Hill Route 66 Neon Route (it's in New Mexico). For some of the locations you can see a photo. For others, there is no photo (like Highland...
I've mentioned Weather Central in the past with regards to some of their killing broadcasts which use Virtual Earth as a backdrop. Well, I caught up with them at NAB and thought I'd post an update on some of their innovation. Here are some samples of where they've included Virtual Earth 3D as the backdrop for weather forecasts (notice the clouds in the sky): New York: Las Vegas: Also, check out their own Simulcast Sample Video . Click on the "Forecast" button to see Virtual Earth in action for not just weather, but for news stories as well. With all of this, their customers are benefiting from the Virtual Earth integration into the Weather Central software package. One such customer is KATV 7...
I wrote a little mashup for Where 2.0 that shows some functionality I've always wanted and was just too lazy...I mean busy! to get it done. The idea is that if I ever wanted to know what the lat/lon of a specific location on a map is (since I write a few geo-apps) all I wanted to do was click on the map (or in this case an aerial photo). In Virtual Earth 6.1, I had to take it a step further and reverse geocode the lat/lon for an address. I got really greedy and wanted to show a Bird's Eye image. Well, here we go: Click on any location (or friend's / enemy's house) Provide me with the lat/lon Provide me with the address Provide me with a Bird's Eye Photo I have to warn you, the app isn't totally...
7-Eleven went live last night with Virtual Earth. Nothing over the top special, but a nifty little store locator. Enter a postal code, select some optional search attributes (Gas Available, Bill Payment, ATM, Money Order, Audio Enabled ATM, Money, Transfers, Check Cashing, 7-Eleven® Visa®), and click "Go" to find the nearest 7-Eleven. The implementation is pretty clean. I've thrown a couple JS errors, but it didn't kill my browser or experience. I like the hidden additional results that appear when I request them via the link. Also, they have the drag and refresh map-based query which is just absolutely mandatory for any map-based application. Downside - Bird's Eye is disabled (CTRL + O to force...
James Oyang , recently granted me a copy of Pharos Trips and Pics with GPS . I've been a longstanding user of the Pharos GPS with Streets and Trips and MapPoint , but with the continued growth of online photo-sharing and using maps as a backdrop I wanted to find something that scales a bit better. So, I took the GPS with me, installed the software and synchronized my camera clock with my computer clock. After leaving the ESRI Developer Summit, I had a meeting in Las Vegas. It's a 4 hour drive, so instead of spending $700 on a ticket to Vegas I opted for the drive. I turned on my Pharos GPS and started taking pictures. It was a brutal drive, let me tell you. I've made the drive from LA and San...
The Live Search Maps China team has been busy. They've release a new version of Live Search Maps China which includes Virtual Earth China API for developers, with Virtual Earth China SDK documentation on Chinese MSDN. Pinyin support for map search query Business photos on LSV page Transit - Improved route quality; better estimation of trip time; refreshed transit data for all 11 cities. Geocoding - Support Pinyin correction; geocoding match rate improved from 69.7% to 74.9%. Along with this release, you can also see the 5/12 China Earthquake Map , which keeps track of the latest developments of the earthquake. This was pulled together within 1 hour after the earthquake and we are believed to...
The Live Search Maps team in China has created a collection rendering all of the earthquakes in China . We hope this collection of information will provide some additional information about events that are taking place, so those of you who are interested can follow along using a map-based interface. China Tomorrow Education Foundation ( CTEF ) is accepting donations online or by check to bring much needed relief to affected families and survivors. CP
The long awaited Microsoft Worldwide Telescope is now available for download! Start exploring the galaxy, the universe and yes, even the Virtual Earth - well, it is a planet you know, so why wouldn't it be included? This tool is absolutely sick and will be the next "must have" application for those late nights under the stars - perfect timing for summer! View other user's collections; explore the galaxies; search for stars; view some of the most beautiful images of space available online. And, you simply can't beat the user interface and experience. Tons of cool features you just have to explore and experience for yourself. If you don't know what Worldwide Telescope is, here's the excerpt from...
About a month ago, Google released integration between Google Earth and Google Spreadsheets . Then, they release Google Spreadsheet Mapper to make it official. Very cool idea. We had native integration between MapPoint 200x and Microsoft Office Excel, but no one had done much to pull Virtual Earth and Excel together. Actually, IDV Solutions', Ian Clemens wrote " Connecting Excel Spreadsheets and Virtual Earth " like a couple days after Google announced their integration, but Microsoft didn't do anything official. Well, that's changed; at least, for developers. We've just published " Integrating Virtual Earth Maps and Excel 2007 Using Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Second Edition " on MSDN...
Zillow.com has been using Virtual Earth for some time now and, in fact, was one of our first customers to integrate and go live with the Virtual Earth platform on their site - just Bird's Eye, though. They were hosting their own repository of imagery, but will now begin enjoying the cost savings of using Virtual Earth with fresh map data, imagery and perhaps a little 3D integration....well, they could if they really wanted to. Read the Zillow blog for more details. The integration is Flash based accessing the tile server. Perhaps we can convince them to use Silverlight in a future version, but there are Silverlight Evangelists for that! Very similar to what they had previously only now they're...
An alert for you Version 6 API customers out there. We're going to auto-upgrade all Version 6 users to Version 6.1 on June 26, 2008. This will effectively combine Version 6 and 6.1. You don't have to do anything; unless, of course, you've downloaded the control and modified the guts of it. Then, you might want to do some proactive investigation into Version 6.1. The good news is that Version 6.1 is backwards compatible to 6.0 (or, at least it will be on June 26. :)). We'll support both URLs, you'll just start getting Bird's Eye Hybrids, reverse geocoding, Safari 3 Support and improved parsing support for US addresses. Check out the full list of Version 6.1 features . And, you get all this without...
SQL Server 2008 Spatial...I like the sound of that. CTP (Community Technology Preview) is available for free evaluation download now. It's coming and I can't wait for you to see it. Since Ed Katibah and I presented at Location Intelligence he and I have been talking more and more about some exciting synergies between our products. SQL Server becomes the data engine and Virtual Earth is the presentation layer. Something like the following would be your basic application data flow. I also wanted to point out some reference material: SQL Server 2008 Spatial Data Datasheet SQL Server 2008 Delivering Location Intelligence with Spatial Data (overview whitepaper) Spatial Web Site If you don't want to...
Here's a unique mashup - Twisney - Virtual Earth, Twitter and Flickr all based on Disney Parks in Orlando. I love this because it's so simple, yet has some great filtering and searching capabilities. You can filter listings on the months and/or days the Twitters were posted, the park you're interested in seeing people Twittering or (if you have a favorite user) the user Twittering. I also like the slide show piece so I can just sit there and watch people Twittering away. Although, I'm really only interested in Twitters with Flickrs, so maybe another filter for that guys. So, for you Twitter-er's who are inside of a Disney park you can let people know what you're up to. Your friends (and other...
