Thursday, March 18. 2010

Microsoft Announced Spatial Support in Azure; WW Telescope in Bing Maps

Per Ed Katibah:

"Microsoft announced support for spatial in SQL Azure today at MIX in Las Vegas." There's nothing yet on the Web about the announcement that I found. (This article about whether spatial support is necessary for Azure is pretty interesting; it's from Feb of this year). For those still sorting out cloud offerings:

Microsoft's Windows Azure Platform is a cloud platform offering that "provides a wide range of Internet services that can be consumed from both on-premises environments or the Internet"[1] (though the platform itself is not made available for on-premises deployments[2]). It is significant in that it is Microsoft's first step into cloud computing following the launch of the Microsoft Online Services offering.

- Wikipedia
And:

SQL Azure (formerly SQL Server Data Services and later SQL Services) is a cloud-based service from Microsoft offering data storage capabilities similar to Amazon S3 and Amazon Relational Database Service as a part of the Azure Services Platform. Unlike similar cloud-based databases, SQL Azure allows relational queries to be made against stored data, which can either be structured or semi-structured, or even unstructured documents.[1] SQL Azure features querying data, search, data analysis and data synchronization.[1]
SQL Azure uses Microsoft SQL Server as a backend, but it exposes only a subset of the data types — including string, numeric, date and boolean.[AND I GUESS NOW SPATIAL] [2] It uses an XML-based format for data transfer.[1] Like Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Azure uses T-SQL as the query language and Tabular Data Stream (TDS) as the protocol to access the service over internet.[1][3] It does not provide a REST-based API to access the service over HTTP.[1] Microsoft recommends using ADO.NET Data Services for this purpose.[1]

- Wikipedia

In other Microsoft news, MS PR points folks to blog posts (Bing one, Chris Pendleton's one) about the release of he WorldWide Telescope mapping application for Bing Maps (the one demoed at TED). "
The application allows people to literally look up at the virtual sky in Bing Maps and see constellations and stars as they exist in real-life. Now people can see the sky as it appears at anytime – in real-time."

Part of why I suspect this isn't going to be as well-used as it might be:

To access the WorldWide Telescope application:
Go to: www.bing.com/maps/explore
Click on Map Apps (bottom of the left-hand rail, below the explore section)
Select the WorldWide Telescope App
(note: you need to have Silverlight installed)

Monday, March 15. 2010

Embed Bing Twitter Map on Your Website

The Bing Maps team has announced that you can now embed its Twitter Maps app into your site to show selected tweets and/or selected geographies.

Select: Choose either a fixed location (centered on a specific point) or open the experience more broadly (moves the map as the Tweets come in).
Specify: Select the dimensions of your map (height and width).
Add: Enable search filters. These will be carried into the embed form (if you’ve specified them to filter only tweets that meet your search criteria).
Embed: Copy/paste the HTML into your web page.

More and a sample (that you may need to key in a code to prove you are a person????) at Bing blog.

- via Microsoft PR

Thursday, March 11. 2010

Motorola to Put Bing Search and Maps on its Android Phones

"Motorola said the partnership with Microsoft means that a Bing bookmark and search widget will be loaded on cell phones, starting in the coming weeks with phones in China."

The move appears to be defensive: If Google and China don't hammer out their differences, Google could pull out of China, leaving Android phones without loaded search and map tools. Motorola had already done a deal to allow users to set their default search to Baidu or others on its phones in China, also "just in case."

- Yahoo

Wednesday, March 10. 2010

Microsoft, The Cloud and Local Government

In November of 2009, Microsoft launched a contest for developers to build on a beta of Microsoft’s cloud platform, Azure. Last month the winners were announced and they were heavy on Web maps. Miami’s 311 System, a citizen info and reporting tool, won with iLink GIS Framework , a data sharing solution, as a runner up.

Steve Read, Microsoft’s National Azure Lead for State and Local Government, "said at the end of the day, the eye candy (map-heavy) apps were the ones that got the most attention, but he also believed there is a huge potential for enterprise applications to help deliver real savings and efficiencies."

- CivSourceOnline

Tuesday, March 9. 2010

Podcast: Platial Shuts Down while Microsoft Opts in to User Generated Location Data from Navizon

This week we look at two news items connected at least superficially by reliance on crowdsourced geospatial data. Platial, one of the early players to offer a simple way to customize Google Maps, announced it was ceasing operations. Microsoft announced a contract with Navizon, a company that crowdsources the data collection of Wi-Fi access points. Why did small but clever Platial not make it? Why is Microsoft turning to small, less familiar Navizon and crowdsourcing over a well-known player like Skyhook?

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Friday, March 5. 2010

Microsoft Breathless About Latest, Largest Imagery Update to Bing

Our MS PR contact e-mailed to tell us about Chris Pendleton's blog post. Interestingly, MS didn't e-mail us about the Navizon deal noted earlier this week.

Last month we pushed out our largest amount of new imagery EVER in terms of square kilometers. This month, we’re blowing THAT record out of the water. You thought 1 million+ sq. km. was large? How about 6.7 million square kilometers! It’s pretty much unfathomable. The big winners? Aerial: The Russian Federation, Australia, Mexico and most places in the US where we had black and white imagery. Bird’s Eye: Sweden.