Tech N' Gadgets

Monday, November 13, 2006

Another one bites the dust

Microsoft tries again to beat the competition.

Microsoft launched Virtual Earth 3D, this new technology lets users view a three-dimensional map of, initially, 15 US cities when they use 'Live Search".

With the upgraded Virtual Earth 3D, Microsoft has edged ahead of Google in at least one aspect of the race to bring immersive maps to the Net. It has added a missing piece: photorealistic buildings that sprout from the ground and evoke the lifelike but illusory world of 'The Matrix,' it said.

If Microsoft continues to add new cities and improves an already expensive project, the 3-D Web could become a carbon copy of the real world and a powerful new platform on which to blend advertising, social networks, search and e-commerce.

Engineers at Microsoft understood that creating a navigable replica of the planet might give users a more intuitive way to surf and search the Internet. Need to get driving directions? Instead of following lines and written directions on a map, Virtual Earth might, one day, take you on a run-through of your route, showing the precise landmarks where you'll make turns, the report said.

If you want to search a particular store whose name you have forgotten, you can visit that neighborhood in Virtual Earth 3D and see the actual name on the front window of the building.

Microsoft is also opening Virtual Earth to third-party developers. So for example, one day a programmer might find a way to let users book a reservation with a mouse click right on the restaurant's front dooryard even wander inside into a 3-D simulation of the dining room to pick a table.