Bing Maps
Microsoft has outdone itself (for once) with its debut of Bing maps. Google Maps has long been the premier way to view streets and satellite imagery of the world and Bing is putting up a fight with this project. Bing is Microsoft’s attempt to do battle with Google and the preparation was effective. Together they form a perfect application so the competition has begun and consumers are the winners.
The new site will seem familiar to those used to Google maps with a few extra incentives. Microsoft has installed its own street side view with a much more in depth and involved felling than Google currently has. Bing Maps with Street Side covers about one hundred city areas in the United States but the application is only ideal when searching cities in the medium to large range.
Anything outside of a concrete jungle tends to remain in 2 dimensions and the richness of Bing’s Street Side becomes void. Over time there is a claim that these suburban and rural areas will be represented as well but the amount of information collection makes this a grueling process because Microsoft is pushing the limits of what computing can do.
Researching a city like Los Angeles will bring up an encyclopedia article on the city, weather information, and links to local picture galleries for your pleasure with a more details button that takes your experience even further bringing up local news, landmarks and their locations. When searching an address of specific city supported with Photosynth, you will be given convenient suggestions of bars, restaurants, clubs, shopping and other places to spend money on your way when you click the, what’s nearby, button.
Getting directions on Bing Maps for Los Angeles is fairly simple but the lack of information that has been collected comes into play here as well when wanting to see Street Side views of turns. They try to make up for it with some written tips, but fall terribly short. Microsoft has a lot of improvements to make before they can truly compete with Google in the same arena but it is a good start nonetheless and I can see this being a healthy competition for computers everywhere to continue getting more and more innovative products and applications.
Bing maps does offer a more interactive view of the world compared with Google but as you can see Google is the benchmark and makes up for the lack of interaction with the fact that it is a complete product while Bing is still developing. The ease at which you can toggle between map views, satellite views, and birds eye view, which is satellite imagery taken from a low angle to present a side view from above.
The application is full of other applications like graffiti and art finding applications and the integrating of Photosynth in the mapping. This feature takes you inside and out of famous buildings and land marks providing an accurate and stalker like amount of information to users world wide from the privacy of their home. The Street Side application is still being developed so not all areas are available to look at.
The Bing version runs slower than Google but these are problems that should be alleviated with time. So when using Bing it is important to remember that it is still in Beta testing and within a year the outlook will be much different so be patient get the updates and you will have a great application to explore the world around you or to simply use as a directory. Either way you will be satisfied.
