Microsoft Virtual Earth

[Sair33]

I'm sure most of you will have seen this... but if not... it's amazing!!!
You can even look at towns from different angles which I've not seen before on satellite images. Very cool

Microsoft Virtual Earth

[Clunk]

Very similar to google maps, interesting stuff, its a shame the maps are so old though.

Edit: does it say how old the maps are anywhere? Just looking at my area and it must be a good 5 years or more.

[Marcos]

I guess the big question is....Is it better than Google Earth?

[notsobig]

Actually the guy giving away 20pound note in front of British Musium is me

[bigblue]

'Tis good, but the images are a bit dated as others have said. Don't suppose we can really expect them to refresh images of the majority of the planet that often though

My house, that we moved into about 2.5 years ago, is only half built in the aerial photo

The thing that I find most useful about it is it's intergration with Autoroute. It's quite handy, especially if you're unfamiliar with the area to which you're heading, to get directions then be able to look at the aerial shot for landmarks, road layouts and the like.

edit: just looked to see if they'd updated our area yet, and they've actually rolled BACK to a much earlier, but more detailed pic My half built home is now a container base

*peers through blinds to check there isn't some weird time shift thingy going on*

[MadduckUK]

Microsoft playing second fiddle is just WEIRD isn't it?

[amjedm]

Microsoft playing second fiddle is just WEIRD isn't it?

I like it

The maps for my area aren't too dated - well not a few years anyway.

[Odc]

Very similar to google maps, interesting stuff, its a shame the maps are so old though.

Edit: does it say how old the maps are anywhere? Just looking at my area and it must be a good 5 years or more.

Same with me. A whole housing estate is missing that they started building 6/7 years ago!

[amjedm]

Same with me. A whole housing estate is missing that they started building 6/7 years ago!

Maps near me are max 2 years old.

[forsaken991]

they have some nice high res photo's on there. Just a shame they are out of date

[AtomicFuse]

until a few weeks ago Leicester was simply non-existent on google maps! now they decided to put it on! I just like the 3d view thing, that's Microsoft's way of compensating for the dated photos they bought..

[Dorza]

Same with me. A whole housing estate is missing that they started building 6/7 years ago!

My parents had a conservatory built back in 2001 and it is missing in the aerial photo, so they are at least 6 years old in my area.

[Sair33]

Crikey... well, Aylesbury is up to date really, maximum 6 months old I would say judging by the new road layouts and building work...

[Nick Smith]

The Bird's eye view is really up to date, as the estate where i live is built, but the old steelworks is still on the land where my house was built in the map view, so i guess that must be around at least 5-6 years old, as thats when it was demolished.

[MadduckUK]

was anyone expecting them to take the 4 birds eye views and make something actually 3d out of them for the 3d mode?

[Muzzy]

This is great - Much better than google earth for my town so many thanks