Microsoft today announced several new Bing Maps features which are part of what the team calls Spatial Search. The first one is the integration of FlickR picture into Street Side view (see the screenshot above). What Microsoft did is crawl through all the Geotagged pictures of several cities (San Fransisco, Seattle & Vancouver) and matched them with their Street Side imagery. The second features is a big one: Bing Sky, integration of the WorldWide Telescope into Bing Maps. To activate it you just look at the sky when in Street Side view and you’ll see the stars. The last feature is the ability to view live videos integrated directly into Streetside view (with real-time live tracking). Check the video here :
At TED we also demonstrated live Webcam feeds perfectly which enables real-time video to be overlaid seamlessly on street-level imagery, adding another dimension to the mapping experience. Imagine – you can see how long the line is at Five Guys before you head over for a burger. In the coming year, we think you will be pleasantly surprised with how far Bing takes this new technology. Stay tuned.
Only the Flickr integration is currently available (in Beta).
Read more about it at the Bing Maps blog here
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