Technologizer » maps

Bing Maps’ New Beta: Interesting, Promising, Erratic

Harry McCracken — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:38:50 +0000

At a press event in San Francisco this morning, Microsoft demonstrated recent, brand-new, and upcoming features it’s adding to its Bing search engine. The big news: The company is launching a beta of a major upgrade to Bing Maps. The beta is available here–and for the sake of comparison, here’s the existing version of Bing Maps, which remains the default.

From my experience so far, the new Bing Maps may be a true beta in the “we’re still working on making it work” sense: It sometimes performed very slowly, or conked out altogether. (Disclosure: I’m trying it on an EVDO connection, which probably doesn’t help.) The new version requires Microsoft’s SilverLight browser plug-in to work, which will be a source of controversy: There are folks who dislike plug-ins in general, and some who have a particular distaste for SilverLight. And since SilverLight is far from universal, there’s a good chance you’ll need to install it before you can test-drive the new Bing Maps.

It is, of course, inevitable that any discussion of Bing Maps will use Google Maps as a frame of reference. The new Bing Maps preserves some features that Google Maps doesn’t have, such as birds-eye aerial photography that shows cityscapes in perspective, not from above. It finally adds a counterpart to Google’s Street View street-level photography: Bing calls its version StreetSide, and it’s available for 100 U.S. metropolitan areas to start. (The interface is really similar to Google’s down to the use of a doppelganger of Google’s Pegman to help you navigate your way around.)

And it tries to surge ahead of Google Maps in some respects–my favorite of which is Map Apps, a series of optional map overlays provided by Microsoft and others. They include everything from maps of major world cities to offbeat roadside attractions.

Oh yeah, there’s also a Twitter Map app, which lets you view Tweets for a neighborhood you’re perusing–pretty nifty.

The new Bing Maps also integrates Microsoft’s clever Photosynth 3D photocollage feature. But clumsily so, at least in my encounters: It devotes prime real estate to promoting Photosynths near your geographic searches, but doesn’t indicate what the Photosynth is of until you click on it. (When I did a search for San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel, high atop Nob Hill, Bing Maps kept urging me to view a Photosynth which turned out to show Union Square.)

So is there any benefit from Bing Maps’ use of SilverLight, versus Google Maps, which depends on open-standard AJAX programming techniques and doesn’t require any browser plug-ins? Yes, at least a little: Bing’s maps zoom in and out more fluidly, and wandering around StreetSide views provides a more smoothly-rendered experience than Street View, which can get choppy. SilverLight also enables the Photosynth integration. I said in a Tweet that the new Bing Maps might be the first (non-Olympics-related) SilverLight app good enough to induce a lot of people to install SilverLight, but now I’m not so sure: I wanna see if the slow and erratic experience I’m getting is a temporary quirk or an ongoing issue. (And if you’re the type with a deep, instinctive dislike of plug-ins, I’m not sure that there’s anything in Bing Maps that’ll make a believer of you.)

In any event, I’m rooting for Microsoft to keep plugging away at Bing Maps in particular and Bing in general until the world sees them as serious rivals to Google’s offerings. With Yahoo’s planned exit from the search innovation wars, Bing is the closest thing that Google has to serious competition. Even if Google remains the leader, I’d love to see it running scared, at least a little bit.

If you check out the Bing Maps beta, let us know what you think.

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5Words: An Apple Mapping Mystery

Harry McCracken — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:32:15 +0000

What’s Apple doing with maps?

Google translates Web sites automatically.

Walt Mossberg likes HTC’s Hero.

Is Comcast kicking NBC’s tires?

Sony PSP Go, games arrive.

Hands-on with Google Wave.

BlackBerries finally sync with Macs.

Verizon dumps its Hub gizmo.

Ooma launches Telo VoIP system.

Nokia’s Booklet: Best Buy only.

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Windows Geniune Advantage: Now Even More Advantageous!

Harry McCracken — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:14:34 +0000

I’m in Berlin at the moment, where I arrived today to be a speaker at IFA, Europe’s equivalent of the Consumer Electronics Show. More on that later this week, I’m sure; for now, here’s some stateside news.

WGA for XP Pro Gets an Update
Microsoft’s Alex Kochis has blogged about changes to the Windows XP version of the company’s Windows Genuine Advantage anti-piracy software. The post is in Microsoft-ese, so it’s not completely clear what’s going on. Kochis seems to say that installing new versions of WGA will be easier; that the new verion will only apply to XP Pro and variants (the most-stolen versions of XP); and that if Windows thinks you’re running a pirated copy of the OS, it’ll change your wallpaper to a black screen every hour, and add an “Ask For Windows Genuine Software” logo to your desktop. I’m still deeply suspicious of WGA because of its tendency to think that paid-for copies of Windows are stolen–the Vista version did that to me a few weeks ago–and Microsoft’s patronizing policy of attempting to sell WGA as a favor it’s doing for paying customers. I think I’ve said this before, but if it simply changed the name to something like “Microsoft Anti-Theft Technology” it would be a large step in the right direction.

Read more at: Windows Genuine Advantage Blog

Mapquest? Mapquest?
Mapquest was once so dominant an online mapping service that its name became a verb, as in “I’ll Mapquest it.” Then Google Maps and other slick new mapping services came along, at the same time that Mapquest…well, at the same time that Mapquest hardly changed at all. This week, the service is rolling out a beta with new features, including a map on the home page (!), easier access to addresses you’ve already entered (!!), and a new logo that’s basically the old logo with a Web 2.0 reflection effect (!!!). At best, the changes bring Mapquest into this century. How about a version that does to Google Maps what Google Maps did to Mapquest?

Read more at: Webware

Google Gets Suggestive
The world’s biggest search engine is finally making Google Suggest, a longtime feature of its Google Labs incubator, into an official tool on the Google search home page. (The Google blog says it’ll appear to users gradually over the next week; I’m not seeing it yet, but I’m in Germany at the moment, so I feel lucky when I can understand my search results at all.) Google Suggest simply displays some suggestions of what you might be searching for as you enter keywords into the Google search box; Yahoo, Ask.com, and other sites have offered something similar for awhile now, so it’s more an instance of Google playing catchup than breaking new ground. You gotta wonder whether Google’s pervasiveness makes it move more slowly than smaller competitors in instances like this: It must be a big deal to make any change to the way the Google home page works, even if it’s a useful one.

Read more at: CRN

Psystar Strikes Back
Back in April, a tiny company called Psystar announced plans to begin selling PCs that could run Apple’s OS X–the first Mac clones since Steve Jobs’ return to Apple. In July, to nobody’s surprise, Apple sued Psystar. Now Psystar is suing Apple, saying that the company’a policy of bundling its hardware and operating system violates the Sherman and Clayton anti-trust acts. I find it hard to believe that Psystar will conquer Apple in any way that will result in Mac cloning becoming legit, although it’s an interesting scenario to contemplate.

Read more at: Venturebeat

Browsing InPrivate
Microsoft has confirmed recent rumors by announcing that Internet Explorer 8 will add a feature called InPrivate, which lets you quickly switch into a mode in none of the evidence of where you’ve searched or what you’ve done is preserved. Bloggers who reported on this jokingly called it a “porn mode” meant to help IE users conceal sleazy surfing from spouses. (Try saying that six times fast!) Weirdly, Microsoft’s IE Blog more or less addresses this directly, saying that “many users are concerned about so-called ‘over-the-shoulder privacy’, or the ability to control what their spouses, friends, kids, and co-workers might see.” Maybe Microsoft hopes to slow down Firefox’s market share inroads by appealing to married types who have something to hide? Tricky! I’m still looking forward to trying out the IE 8 beta 2 when it arrives–soon, according to Microsoft.

Read more at: All About Microsoft

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