Microsoft Virtual Earth now has a new name (and it’s not Kumo or Kiev). First, a little background to ensure we’re all on the same page. As of yesterday…. Live Search Maps was our consumer maps offering. This is the web site you go to for maps, aerial photos, directions, searching for points of interest...

A few months ago, Photosynth became a part of the Microsoft Virtual Earth team and shortly thereafter launched the availability for all users to create and upload Synths into our cloud storage. Of course, I had to take it a step further and integrate it with Virtual Earth - Photosynth Released - Now...

Today we released updates to the Microsoft Virtual Earth AJAX control and a new version of the Virtual Earth 3D map control. We’ve added a couple new methods for adding and removing pins (and DIVs) in the AJAX control; added performance improvements for AJAX and 3D; enhanced geocoding and parsing across...

Welcome to MIX! Following suit with many Microsoft web technologies, here’s our product announcement…..It’s been a long time coming – a year, in fact, since I presented a sneak peak of the Microsoft Virtual Earth Silverlight (VESL) Map Control at MIX 2008 . Now, here we are a year later at MIX 2009 releasing...

Perhaps you’ve heard that the Live Labs team launched a free version of the Seadragon browser for iPhone …perhaps not. While the viewer is awesome and provides a killer photo viewer (arguably better than what comes with the iPhone) it also has Microsoft Virtual Earth included natively in the application...

We've officially released MapPoint 2009 European English Edition into the wild. Now our friends across the pond can experience the greatness of our desktop mapping application with data updates and a new user interface. MapPoint 2009 European Edition is available in English, German, French, Italian and...

The Microsoft Research Team has released an updated version of WorldWide Telescope for free download. The new release is jammed packed with features including my favorite, 3D Solar System and Universe View (plug in your X-Box controller prior to running WWT for fully immersive 3D tranquility). If there...

The Live Search Maps China site just got some improvements. Innovation is burning like wildfire worldwide. Driving Direction – New! Country-wide (mainland China) road coverage Inter-city (e.g. Beijing to Shanghai ) and intra-city (e.g. Tiananmen to Bird's Nest in Beijing ) directions Multi-point...

Argentina now has it's own Live Search Maps beta site. I'm a little late getting this on the blog, but better late than never. Plus, since I'm a little late to the game there's a good chance you didn't know about it either, so let's dig in.  This site comes with geocoding places and addresses, road...

It's been almost a year since Microsoft acquired Multimap . We've been pretty quiet integrating them into Microsoft; however, it's time to make a little noise. As part of the first significant announcement the Multimap team has release a new free API which contains lots of robust features which you can...

Thanks to everyone who attended my "Momentum Webcast: See More and Do More with Microsoft Virtual Earth (Level 100)" this morning. If you missed the webcast (shame on you), you can view the recording online at the Live Meeting Website . For additional information about the Virtual Earth AJAX Control...

If you follow Microsoft Virtual Earth I'm sure you've picked up some blog posts that posted some of the features for this release, but those posts mysteriously disappeared. Information leaked out and you wondered, "Was that real?" Well, finally the definitive source on the new Virtual Earth Web Service...

We've just made updates to our consumer site, Live Search Maps which are tied back to some of the updates in the Virtual Earth platform - there's a slough of posts coming from me today! For the release we've included some AWESOME new features for users to enjoy, so please...enjoy! Communities Community...

We've released a new version of Virtual Earth 3D today. When you get to Live Search Maps and click 3D you'll be prompted to update your 3D control. As a part of this, you can also download the latest and greatest bits of 3DVia from Dassault Systèmes (or go to the 3DVia download center on Live.com...

We've just launched the new Live Search Maps India site and for a v1 it is SUPER robust. Check out this list of features: Street Maps for 9 important Indian cities Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, and Jaipur and National Road Network of India with roughly 20,000...

We've just released the ability to add your listings to Live Search Maps via the Live Search Local Listings Center (US only). Actually, the service had been in place for a while, but not many people knew about it and functionality was, well, rudimentary. Live Search Local (and Live Search Maps) lets...

Live Search Maps Taiwan just made it's debut (as Live Pages). This service is a joint effort between Microsoft Taiwan and Chunghwa Telecom, the largest telecommunication operator in Taiwan. This new service is created based on technologies from the following companies : Chunghwa Yellow Page, a subsidiary...

Feel free to bypass my blog and download Photosynther now . Photosynther is the client software to create your own Photosynth's viewable in the browser. Some of this post may look familiar to you folks who leverage search engine cache, but I've added some Virtual Earth integration to the post so get...

I've been hanging out with Ed Katibah in San Diego at the ESRI User Conference and not in the whole two days we stood in our circular booth did he mention this was going down tonight, but whatever Ed! Actually, the booth was so busy, we spent all of about 5 minutes catching up. I digress. After waiting...

Don't like JavaScript? You want your managed code with the new wave of AJAX maps? Well, the long awaited Virtual Earth ASP .Net Server Control is now available for download as a part of the Windows Live Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio . Here are some of the features and benefits of the control: Toolbox...

Today is a big day. BIG DAY. As you'll recall, several months ago we acquired Caligari because of their advanced 3D toolset - trueSpace (among other assets). I've always felt sketchy about other 3D freeware, so starting today trueSpace 7.6 is now available for download.....FOR FREE ! And, there is a...

It's official! We're releasing an update to the desktop products MapPoint 2009 (Desktop Business Intelligence Mapping and Analysis Tool) and Streets & Trips 2009 (Desktop Consumer Trip Planning). Contrary to the release of MapPoint 2006, there are quite a few more features and a whole new interface...

Another big day for Virtual Earth in the portal space. Granted, it's our own search portals but it's great to see the platform getting more use and exposure worldwide. Live Search Maps China has expanded it's offering (just in time for the Olympics). Live Search Maps Australia just launched (shortly...

Friday we released an updated version of the MapPoint Web Service SDK 4.7 . There's nothing new in terms of functionality for the SOAP XML APIs, but we did update the docs to include a new version of the road network coverage. So, now you get a better idea of what the MapPoint Web Service Geographic...

We've officially launched our staging environment which allow you to access Virtual Earth features without incurring transaction costs for hitting production. Plus, we can stage new features allowing you to new stuff and regression test for backwards compatibility. Here's the official communication from...