Virtual Earth, An Evangelist's Blog

I just read about how a Google Engineer apparently integrated Google Earth with Wii and "was able to get the Balance Board to talk to the program after decoding the Bluetooth packets being sent from the board .” Um, thankfully Brian Peek has done...

Thank you Mayor Greg Nickels! The City of Seattle has embraced Microsoft Virtual Earth for their “ My Neighborhood ” mapping application and WOW – I’ve never seen so much useful data in such a simple format with a map-based interface. You want to talk...

The Microsoft Research team responsible for WorldWide Telescope has just pushed out another update (v 2.2.41.1). Code named “Solstice Borealis” the new release includes a couple sweet and mind boggling features. National Virtual Observatory Cone Search...

A little announcement for those of you NOT signed up with any kind of account and thus not receiving our communications… We’re pleased to announce that your Virtual Earth v6.1 applications will be automatically upgraded to v6.2 on March 5 th , 2009. This...

The Microsoft Virtual Earth team will be at the Inman Real Estate Connect show in New York City, next week. I have two sessions and the 3rd will be done by my counterpart, Mark Merchant. Also, Matthew Quinlan, Virtual Earth Group Product Manager, will...

As Santa heads north for his annual slumber and we’re all left with buyer’s remorse and daunting credit card bills we can now reflect on something positive: how Christmas was changed this year for the better with a 3D version of tracking Santa using Microsoft...

We’ve been doing some housecleaning the last 2 months with some of our road network data. As a result, a small blog post to let you know of a HUGE refresh / release (48TB worth) of all tile sets where vector information is included – Road, Hybrid Aerial...

To those of us who live in the Pacific Northwest it’s no secret that there is a HUGE opportunity for any of the Southern states to bring their Mexican restaurants up here and make huge bucks – we’re waiting, nay dying. Please? Growing up in San Diego...

Coldwater Creek just launched their snazzy new store locator using Microsoft Virtual Earth just in time for the post holiday bargain shopping rush. Once getting to the store locator page you’ll get a static map image with each state being clickable (or...

As a follow up to The North Pole – A Virtual Earth Christmas Experience , the boys and I created a Santa Tracker to track Old St. Nick on his trek around the world hosted by MSNBC ( direct link to application here in the case you can find it on MSNBC...

Helmets strapped on? For some time Microsoft has had a relationship with Dassault for publishing consumer 3D models into Virtual Earth using 3DVia . When you install the Virtual Earth 3D Managed Control you have the option of downloading 3DVia free of...

The beta release of Vodaphone’s Pocket Life is now available for free download . Pocket Life is a web and mobile service that offers a seamless, integrated experience for communication, social networking, location based services, street and satellite...

The open source project dubbed Deep Earth has been officially released . The project puts Microsoft Virtual Earth in a Silverlight UX allowing for incredible visual and scalable geospatial data visualization. DeepEarth is a mapping control powered by...

A little token of our nod to the holidays. Check out the site built with a Silverlight interface with post cards highlighting our imagery from our the world. Click on any of them to be redirected to Multimap’s implementation of Virtual Earth imagery on...

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...

Microsoft Virtual Earth and MSNBC are changing the game this year when it comes to tracking Santa. You’ve all seen the NORAD Santa Tracker and while that’s been fun over the years, well, it has gotten a bit stale. So, a few of us here in the Virtual Earth...

Steve Milroy will be presenting at the VS Live conference for Visual Studio Developers in San Francisco, CA on Wednesday, February 25. The topic - “Mapping/Geospatial Solutions with the Microsoft Platform.” You can register for the event here on the VS...

Here’s some sickness. I’m sure the first time you saw Microsoft Virtual Earth you were thinking, “Wow, is this going to integrate with Microsoft Flight Simulator ?” Then, if you’ve ever seen me or one of my colleagues demonstrate Virtual Earth 3D you...

Whoa. I have an idea for a new use of Microsoft Virtual Earth . Let’s say a mysterious orb is screaming through space on its way to crash land somewhere on Earth. You could actually determine where the orb was going to land given the speed of the orb...

The US state of Kansas DOT just rolled out a huge improvement to their 511 site . The site has a built in dashboard around a Microsoft Virtual Earth map interface for super easy access to information pertaining to roadways. Specifically, the application...

In the Virtual Earth AJAX control, there are certain screens that are somewhat hard to capture and control. We pride ourselves on the level of control we give our users, so here’s a little tidbit to hopefully help you retain what hair is left atop your...

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...

I’ve had a couple inquiries about heat maps of late, so wanted to ensure people are aware of the capabilities enabled and resources available for creating heat maps with Virtual Earth. First off, my esteemed colleague Johannes Kebeck has just finished...

I’ll be presenting at the Navigation and Location USA 2008 Conference in San Jose, CA on December 3, 2008 presented by Telematics Update . The discussion, “Unlocking New Revenues Through the Web” is one I’m very passionate about. I see quite a few applications...

The Australian National Diabetes Services Scheme has published an interesting Virtual Earth map application illustrating the spread and penetration of diabetes across the country. The Australian Diabetes Map allows users to select a specific area type...