Thursday, May 28. 2009

Yet another new name for Live Maps (whatever)

"Live Search Maps will now be called Bing Maps – with the Virtual Earth platform becoming Bing Maps for Enterprise."

This comes on the heels of the announcement of Bing, Microsoft's "decision engine," which goes live worldwide June 3. For more on Bing, Discover Bing. The few previews I read, including this one from Wired, say about the same things: some cool stuff, but stay with Google on search. I know I'm a hard sell to get off Google, but I'll give Bing a try, if only because I like the cherries.

No change in map product functionality.

- Microsoft rep

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Microsoft at 10:37 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0) |

NASA to open source tools to make WorldWide Telescope Format Data

TechFlash filed the Freedom on Information Act request to see the documents that detailed an agreement between NASA and Microsoft to put imagery of Mars and the moon in the company's WorldWide Telescope. It turns out that while NASA will convert its data into Microsoft's format, the agency will also make the conversion code available under an open source license.

- TechFlash

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Open Source, Microsoft at 09:27 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, May 19. 2009

Dr. Vincent Tao Moves on from Microsoft

In an e-mail to his friends and colleagues Microsoft's Senior Director with Microsoft Virtual Earth and Local/Mobile Search shared that he is leaving the company to pursue "a business in the area of Consumer Internet and will offer consulting and advisory services to Geo/IT sectors. I have been amazed by the growing opportunities in China and as such I will spend most of my time in China."

I've known Dr. Tao since his GeoTango days and always appreciated the energy and insight he brought to his work and the geospatial community.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Microsoft at 15:50 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Podcast: DigitalGlobe IPO: Pushing Geospatial into IT?

This week DigitalGlobe joined the ranks of other companies that are publicly traded. Does this move and the related buzz help move geospatial technology into the realm of the broader information technology space? How should we see this change? Also: concerns about GeoEye-1 push that company's stock down.


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Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, Microsoft, Remote Sensing, Sensors, Directions on the News Podcast, Geospatial Business, Bentley at 01:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Saturday, May 9. 2009

Update: Photosynth Public and Live: Details

While the announcement sounds quite amazing the implementation I finally found was quite straight forward. A photosynth " link is attached to a the point marker on the map. You click it and it opens a window in which you can see the synth. I suspect in the future we'll see far more integration. If you want to see it on the VisitBrighton.com site (I had to contact Microsoft to figure out what to app to use and where to look...) here's the path:

Go to the site.

Select "Things to Do"

Key in "Brighton Museum and Art Gallery" in keyword search and enable "Show Results on Map" on right side search tool.

Click on the marker for the Museum (It has an M in it).

You'll find this when you click on the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Microsoft at 05:36 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Thursday, May 7. 2009

MSN Direct Service Under Review

On Tuesday Microsoft let go 3,000 employees, the second wave of a promised 5000 person cut announced earlier this year. While no products were removed from the product line, one with implications for location-based services is under review: MSN Direct. That's an FM data service used to send traffic, weather and other real time data to GPS receivers (from many vendors) and the less-than-successful SmartWatch.

The official statement on MSN Direct:

While the group was impacted by yesterday's job eliminations, they will continue to maintain the current MSN Direct service and invest in developing a low cost receiver for multiple devices.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Microsoft, Real-Time/Dynamic Data, Satellite Navigation at 08:34 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |