Microsoft Wants You to Know…Bing Maps Now Using Nokia Backend for Traffic and Geocoding

Building on the existing strategic partnership between Microsoft and Nokia, today we’re announcing that Bing Maps is now using Nokia backend services for Traffic and Geocoding. With the goal of helping get places faster and get more done, here are the key things Nokia services will do for Bing Maps:

• Bing Maps will now offer Nokia-powered traffic results in 24 countries.
• Improved and expanded traffic information in the US, adding traffic fo side streets in addition to freeways.
• Bing Maps will begin using Nokia geocoding countries, offering improved routing and directions.

- Microsoft PR which sends you to this blog post

Bing Maps Update

Microsoft wants you to know:

Today, Bing is announcing several updates to help people navigate Bing Maps faster and more easily find businesses, building and venues.

-  Expanded venue maps: Now there are nearly 900 venue maps which are much easier to find and use. Simply zoom-in into your favorite shopping mall, airport or stadium and click on its footprint to access the venue map.

-  Improved local business info: Zoom-in into Bing Maps and find some of the most popular local businesses, including hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions, and much more. Simply click on a business name or icon and find out more details about it.

-  Better navigation: Bing Maps added semi-transparent 3D building outlines for metropolitan areas, providing better context of how a city looks and where the key buildings and landmarks are located. Additionally, most labels in Bing Maps now act as shortcuts, making it faster and easier to zoom-in and provide the best map view for a particular place (state, neighborhood, park, etc.).

- e-mail from Microsoft PR

Watercolor Rendering and other OpenStreetMap News

Designers at data visualization house Stamen have created a very cool compromise for digital maps. It’s a watercolor-like skin for any OpenStreetMap project, and it’s totally remarkable. Streets have an organic, analog roundness to their edges, and bodies of water aren’t a solid blue, but a mix of hues and color densities, as if the map is actual, textured paper slathered with a casual mix of water and paint. (In fact, the digital render is pretty much indistinguishable from any actual scanned map.)

It's iicensed under Creative Commons.

- FastCo Design

The NextWeb delves into Apple, Google and OSM. One big quesiton: Does Bing use OSM. In the end we learn: no, it does not. Oh, and there's some conspiracy theory in there, too.

- The Next Web

The OpenStreetMap Foundation Japan (OSMFJ) and TheOpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) announce the release of a new OpenStreetMap layer for Yahoo!JAPAN map services. The new OSM layer is available on Yahoo! JAPAN Local.

This follows the March 6 donation of data by Yahoo!Japan. And, there's a mobile layer, too, for Japan.

- OSM Foundation

New Geo APIs - 2/22/12

Bing Traffic API: The Bing Traffic API provides information about traffic incidents and issues, such as construction sites and traffic congestion. Traffic incident information is currently available for the United States and Canada. Users can also get information about traffic issues that met the criteria specified in the URL request, such as map area, incident type and severity. The API uses RESTful calls and responses are formatted in XML and JSON.

deCarta MapSearch Engine API: deCarta is a location based services provider. The Map Search Engine API gives developers the ability to implement local search on their web sites and applications. The API can search address and point of interest data sourced from content partners. Developers can also overlay their own searchable content onto the map. MapSearch Engine is “white label”, allowing customers to unitize their own UI, branding and content. The API uses RESTful calls and responses are formatted in XML, JSON, JSONP and XHTML.

- Programmable Web

Bonus: 40 real estate APIs

- +skipcody

Garmin Swaps Bing for Google, but Now offers both Maps to Connect Users

Let's see if I have this straight. Garmin Connect (the result of the Garmin Acquisition of MotionBased in 2005, press release) used to be built on Google Maps. Then a year ago Garmin switched to Bing Maps. Then the community got mad, mostly pointing at the poor terrain views in Bing Maps. So, now, Garmin offers a choice, which it's suggested, means it must pay both companies for their enterprise licenses.

Clearly, changing the map really bothers people. My favorite planning app for runs, GMaps Pedometer now offers Google and OSM.

- Programmable Web