* Astronomy

The New Release of Live Maps and Virtual Earth 3D is now Live!

I'm so glad to finally announce that the latest version of Live Maps is online and ready for you to play with. This ended up being a much bigger release than originally planned including three full sprints of development. As always the changes visible in the user interface only scratch the surface of the dozens of improvements across the application tiers including Geocoding enhancements, browser compatibility (Safari and IE8), parsing improvements, reverse geocoding, printing improvements and tons more.
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Microsoft has  released 36TB of new imagery, and 60 new cities with 3D buildings for Virtual Earth.

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Microsoft has released a new version of Virtual Earth

Microsoft is building on several years of innovation in imagery and 3-D visualisation, adding some of the most significant innovations to driving directions technology in the last several years and expanding how our current 185 million customers can experience the improvements to the core of Live Search to include access from a wider variety of clients, platforms and devices - Satya Nadella, corporate vice president of the Search & Advertising Platform Group at Microsoft.

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 Microsoft Corp. and Intermap Technologies Corp. today announced the launch of Microsofts enhanced Virtual Earth 3-D viewing platform based on Intermap Technologies highly accurate and up-to-date elevation data for all of Great Britain. Intermap is also creating similar maps for all of Western Europe and the continental United States. The resulting product delivers a more seamless and accurate
3-D experience for all Internet users visiting Microsofts Live Search Maps for England, Scotland and Wales.
Intermaps precise and uniform 3-D digital terrain model serves as the foundation for the placement and alignment of aerial photography and other geospatial images. These images are then layered upon this 3-D foundation to better align and place objects without distortion or undulation, thus creating a superior end product.

Microsoft is committed to delivering the highest-accuracy and highest-quality product for our Live Search Maps customers, and this enhancement is another step toward meeting this commitment. Having Intermaps highly accurate and reliable foundation layer under our imagery and building models allows us to provide one of the most accurate viewing experiences on the Internet today  -  Aric Weiker, director of product management for the Virtual Earth platform at Microsoft.

Live Search Maps is Microsofts online local search and mapping service that combines unique birds-eye imagery with advanced driving directions, Yellow Pages and other local search tools. Powered by the companys Virtual Earth mapping and location platform, these features give users useful new ways to map and find directions to various locations, and to better visualise their surroundings from multiple aerial vantage points.

This is a fundamental change for the industry as Microsoft raises the bar for accuracy and realistic 3-D experiences.  While an accurate visualization application is important to deliver to consumers, our relationship with Microsoft begins to pave the way for the delivery of additional value-added products for the business and consumer markets within Great Britain, Europe and the U.S  -  Eric DesRoche, senior vice president of automotive and consumer electronics at Intermap.

As part of Intermaps worldwide proactive data collection efforts, Great Britain is currently in the companys data library. In addition, Intermap is now aggressively mapping Europe under its NEXTMap® Europe program. Data for the entire country of Germany is currently being placed in the Intermap library, and data collection for the remainder of Western Europe is scheduled for completion by the end of 2007. The continental U.S. is being mapped concurrently with the European initiative and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2008.

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