Improved imagery for Haiti and Vancouver included.
This month Bing is adding a ton of imagery to its Maps. Much of the new stuff helps users virtually explore the world – specifically Europe and Africa – with Australia, Canada and the U.S. thrown in for good measure.
Also, timely releases for Haiti and Vancouver are included in the release. Here’s what’s new:
Bird’s Eye
- Italy – 5,547 sq. km.
- Netherlands – 554 sq. km.
- Romania – 1,414 sq. km.
- Spain – 512 sq. km.
- Sweden – 1,174 sq. km.
If I had to guess, I would say the Bing team’s 2010 resolutions are to continue growing fast and furiously. If the five updates they’ve released in the past two days are any indication, they’re on track to do just that.
First up, Bing has notified the Article 29 Working Party in Europe that they’re reducing the amount of time they store IP addresses to just six months. Up until now, they’ve held on to the info for 18 months.
Secondly, Bing has added current and trending news topics to their Autosuggest feature.
Bing Maps has updated their imagery of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti to reflect current conditions in the wake of last week’s earthquake. Their imagery comes from Digital Globe’s new Worldview 2 satellite.
In addition to the damage, it’s easy to see where people are congregating outdoors as they feel unsafe to be inside their homes and other structures:
The Haitian earthquake has shown the ability of various nations to come together to provide relief to people who so desperately need it. Another event that displays similar solidarity offers a more positive experience: the Olympics.
Through MapQuest’s relationship with CitySearch, over 700,000 new business listings have been added to the online mapping service. The listings include popular categories such as restaurants, bars, clubs, hotels, shopping, and spas.
In addition to the listings, MapQuest has added greater editorial content for their business listings. Such content includes ratings and reviews, coupons, business hours, and restaurant menus.
MapQuest and CitySearch entered into their partnership in August of 2008.
Last week, Bing unveiled Streetside imaging but you may have noticed it’s not quite extensive. Hold your horses. These things take time.
Bing is partnering with Navteq to get some more imaging done. Navteq is already traversing roads all over to get the best info for maps. So, Bing is simply attaching cameras to their vehicles to capture the imaging. Pretty clever.
The vehicles will be outfitted with the Microsoft Vexcel UltraCam. Expect monthly releases of Streetside imagery as it becomes available.
Here are the new ones:
- ATM’s (Now Over 72,000!)
- Parks
- Stadium Arenas and Athletic Fields
- Tourist Attractions (Includes 1.5M Locations!)
- Court Houses
- City Hall
- Libraries
MapQuest has also updated existing categories. Those in rural areas – you might find coverage for your area now.
- Rest Areas
- Bus Stations
- Train Stations
- Commuter Rail Stations
- Park and Ride’s
- Ski Resorts
- Wineries (Over 500 To Search!)
- Highway Exits
- Tourist Information Centers
Today, Satya Nadella Senior Vice President, Online Services at Microsoft unveiled new Bing features at an event in San Francisco. The updates involve Bing Maps, the Bing Mobile App and a new Bing Toolbar. There was also
Maps
- Streetside imaging – yes, that’s Microsoft’s version of Google’s Street View. It’s smart for Bing to compete with the Google monster on this one.
- Twitter integration – see real-time updates based on location
- Local Lens – indexes local blogs and tries to associate them with a physical location
The Google Earth and Maps Team has been hard at work unloading a bunch of updates. First up, Street View images for the state of Hawaii have been added. Now, all 50 states have Street View.
Additionally, Street View imagery has been added to 5 cities in Mexico, “huge swathes” of Spain, and 30 towns in the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, new updates have come to Latitude. You can now track the history of where you’ve been. This history is not made available to your friends.
Last month, Yahoo! and Google launched a couple of contests (separately), and this week both are announcing the finalists.
First up, Yahoo! is looking for a new Yodel, and they received 21,000 entries. They’ve narrowed it down to three contestants each for the US, UK and India. Click on the links below to view the finalists’ entries and cast your vote:
US
Tiffany Jo from Arizona
Carlo from Arizona
Christopher from Oklahoma
UK
India
There are some big changes happening at Bing Maps, both on the user end and the developer end.
On Bing.com/maps, you can check out the following updates:
- Draggable Routes
- Zoom Bar with predefined settings
- Command Parsing
- Embed a Map
- Dynamic Compute
- New Navigation
- World Wrap (no longer stops at International Date Line)
- Diet Bing Maps – loads faster due to lighter load
Meanwhile, Bing Maps Silverlight Control 1.0 has been released. This allows developers to incorporate Bing Maps into their applications. There are a ton of updates, too many to mention in this post, so be sure to check them out here if you’re a developer.
