I say MAPS LIVE WHAT??? This shitty Microsoft Service only has US cities, while on GoogleEarth (or Googlemaps) I can check out the Palm Jumeirah and the construction of Burj Dubai in Dubai, then decide to check out Avenida Paulista in São Paulo, then see the new port in Buenos Aires and the size of Mumbai in India!!
Hey, ah, this feature has been around for a while. Plus you can do the same satellite view as google earth in other places across the globe. And I know they have their 3d software in place in cities like Rome and London. Its pretty cool.
Location: Greenville, SC - "Birthplace of the light switch rave"
Posts: 13,442
I can't get it to bring up maps... all it does is loop me back to the search bars when I try to look at one.
__________________ "To sustain the life of a large, modern city in this cloying, clinging heat is an amazing achievement. It is no wonder that the white men and women in Greenville walk with a slow, dragging pride, as if they had taken up a challenge and intended to defy it without end." -- Rebecca West for The New Yorker, 1947
I checked out NY in 3D, it was neat. For Canada, you can't zoom in anywhere near as close as you can in Google Earth. I found live to be very slow and jerky as well, so other than the 3D of major American cities, Microsoft has some catching up to do. At least Microsoft made it compatible cross-platform (I use Firefox and Linux).
Well, Google Earth (formerly Keyhole) did start out being basically exclusively US based in their coverage, but now it has quite good international coverage. Microsoft local is good for limited uses, but i find the navigation very clumsy, and it doesnt seem to work very well for me in firefox (big surprise) I still use Google Maps/ Google Earth more.
i get the feeling most of you guys haven't seen the virtual earth 3d portion. the image i see above is just their bird's eye, which as dave said is kinda old... the awesome new addition is when you switch to 3d and go to aerial mode. here's a sampling.
Detroit
i didn't think to wait for the higher-res textures to load for this first one
google earth doesn't have anything outside the downtown core...behold, the fisher (and new center)
house of michi/ex-house of myself
Atlanta
(uh, where's the westin)
(pretty detailed, eh? lame angle but i was tired of screwing with it)
buckhead. same goes for atlanta - practically everything in the city over a few stories is modeled and textured
the system i'm currently on is my friend's sempron 3200/512mb/geforce 6200. just enough power to make the cut... could really use more ram and a more powerful graphics card. i can't wait to give the program a try once it gets it's 1gb addition. (christmas present from his parents)
Holy sweet goddess of the sun those are fucking amazing. What is the website for those cabasse? I guess they are missing a few key buildings, but it is still mindblowing nonetheless!@!
__________________ "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds."
I didn't see the true 3d, which is very neat. I'll have to live without it though, because it's not compatible cross platform, you need Internet Explorer.