Update: Silverlight Control for Virtual Earth

The folks at Microsoft replied to my query for more demos.

First they want to be sure you could find the one on the Earthware page; it’s here. (I had complete faith you could find it!)

Second, they point to a demo from OnTheRoad.to which should be live in the next couple of hours, as noted on this page. “OnTheRoad.To is a new service from Michal Bláha. It helps you share travel experiences and keep connected with friends and family while you’re on the road.”

Finally, they note a demo from Soul Solutions. I was unable to load that one, but here’s the blog post about it. It’s app that shows the origins of the folks at the 2009 MVP Summit.

—- original post 3/19/09————

Remember Silverlight? It’s Microsoft’s multimedia platform you needed to install to watch the Olympics on the Web last summer. Now, it’s also underlying a new control for Virtual Earth that will allow developers in a technology preview to build better looking and faster zooming maps. Chris Pendleton’s blog has the details and a video demo that requires Sliverlight, so it’s a good time to update if you haven’t since the Olympics! The demo is not all that impressive since it’s hard to know what you are looking at and how much faster/different it is than using “the old way.” I hope Microsoft can address that more clearly for those of us who don’t spend all our time using Virtual Earth!

I’ll defer to James Fee on what this may mean to developers: “Looks simple enough to leverage and I’m guessing since Microsoft developers are in love with Silverlight, it won’t be long before the JSAPI is pushed aside.  It looks like people will start having to pick a side, Flash or Silverlight.”

Finally, the folks at Earthware describe why they are excited about the new control and have an actual demo on their blog. (I wonder why Microsoft doesn’t yet provide a live demo? Perhaps I simply didn’t find it?)