Gates Describes Live Earth
He said Microsoft is working on its own interactive offerings including an YouTube-like service called SoapBox and an interactive mapping tool called Live Earth. The latter can turn a regular map into a virtual 3-D representation of a city. Skyscrapers rise, trees and parks are given contour, and even traffic jams are depicted in real time.
The new map software is already available online at maps.live.com, although it is still in preliminary tests. When it is finished, Mr. Gates said a person will be able to pull up a 3-D map of Ottawa and the Parliament buildings will jut out of the scenery as if they were part of a pop-up book. Moving a pointer over top of the buildings would a person to see whether Parliament was sitting, which legislation was being debated and whether the session could be viewed over the Internet.
