GISWiki.NEWS.Reader » Tags

Feeds

Englisch Newspages

Deutsche Newsseiten

Blogs

Jobs

Map-Services

Spanish Newspages

56 items tagged "microsoft"

All Points Blog

Ask.com Moves to Virtual Earth

Posted: July 2nd, 2008, 3:57pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Search Engine Land reports that Ask.com has dropped its homegrown mapping app (built on deCarta, if memory serves) and switched to Microsoft Virtual Earth. Story and pics at Virtual Earth, Evangelist blog.
How Did Gates Do on Predicting Mapping Tech Back in 1995?

Posted: June 27th, 2008, 3:29pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Today is Bill Gates' last day in his current role. He'll move on to a new chapter working with his foundation. To honor that last day, CTV looks at the predictions made in his 1995 book, The Road Ahead. He has this to say about mapping:

"You'll be able to jump into a map so you can navigate down a street or through the rooms of a building."

We are certainly part way there and with the likes of EveryScape and new motion sensing technologies, we are getting closer all the time.

BTW, Hiawatha Bray covered EveryScape in the Boston Globe this week. The opening sentence mentioned Google Maps, so when my Dad pointed it out he said, "there's another article about Google mapping in the paper." I wonder if it's possible to write about new mapping technologies without mentioning the G company?

Slashgeo

Virtual Earth Usage Increasing

Posted: June 16th, 2008, 3:08pm CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

It appears that Virtual Earth is gaining/outpacing Google Earth in the professional adoption arena. We have two more examples of this in the news this week. The Earth Is Square reports that CNN who first adopted Google Earth, is now adopting Virtual Earth. Ogle Earth also reports that China Central Television (CCTV) is using Virtual Earth to show off the locations of the Euro2008 stadiums in Switzerland and Austria, and is planning to use the same tool for the Olympics in China. Visit the links to get more information.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

Topix.net

.NET Customer wins RDN's Innovator Awards

Posted: June 12th, 2008, 11:58pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Just saw this interesting article in Redmond Developer News , which focuses on .NET customer, Southwest Florida Water Management District, winning the RDN Innovator Awards.
Microsoft, Kaiser test integration of e-health systems

Posted: June 9th, 2008, 2:00pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Business Continuity Zone An organization's business continuity plan helps keep critical functions running during an emergency the power fails, a virus is unleashed on your network, a natural disaster has ...
Redmond Developer News Announces 2008 Innovator Awards

Posted: June 6th, 2008, 7:08pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

The 2008 awards, which appear in the June 1 st issue, are based on development projects in four categories - Service Oriented Architecture , Pure Windows, Collaboration, and Mobile.
Microsoft 'Digital Manners' Patent

Posted: June 6th, 2008, 5:07pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

The idea behind the patent, whose application is dated May 29, 2008, is to help device "behave properly" in different situations.

All Points Blog

Microsoft "Digital Manners" Patent

Posted: June 6th, 2008, 3:07pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

The idea behind the patent, whose application is dated May 29, 2008, is to help device "behave properly" in different situations. There are a variety of ways for organizations to send out manners information, including if its suggested or required. A policy might mean that inside a university lecture hall wi-fi use is restricted or cell phone signals will not be transmitted. The title of the patent is Mobile Device Manners Propagation and Compliance. There may well be a geographic component as somehow the "range" required compliance must be designated.

via Unwired

Topix.net

The Academy of Computer Education (ACE) Offers New Courses to go along with a New Website

Posted: June 6th, 2008, 11:35am CEST

Tags: microsoft

The Academy of Computer Education launches new courses, new locations, and a new website.

All Points Blog

Podcast: Wither Paper Maps in a World of Satellite Navigation?

Posted: June 3rd, 2008, 8:00am CEST

Enclosure: [download]

Tags: microsoft

This week the California State Automobile Association announce it would end its production of road maps due to falling demand. The slack will be picked up by the national Association. At the same time police and response organizations are warning the public and their staffs to keep a paper map on hand. What is happening to paper maps as GPS devices become part of our daily lives? Editors Adena Schutzberg and Joe Francica share their thoughts.

Subscribe to Podcast RSS

Listen Now (to download, right click on the link at left and choose "save target as")

Read the show notes

Missed any podcasts? Want to subscribe via iTunes, Yahoo, etc? Here's the index with all the info.
Jim Gray Tribute Coverage

Posted: June 2nd, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

The tribute for the Microsoft Researcher whose work enabled TerraServer and other online mapping was held Saturday at Berkeley. He was presumed missing at sea after setting sail last January. One element of the tribute was the announcement that the Jim Gray Chair in Computer Systems will be established at UC Berkeley, with funding from from Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce.com; Bill Gates, the chairman and co-founder of Microsoft; Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google; Mike Stonebraker, co-founder of Ingres; and the Hewlett Foundation. Donation information is the Chronicle article below.

- New York Times

- San Francisco Chronicle

- Seattle Times

- Information Week

- LA Times
Gates Wants to Map Africa

Posted: May 28th, 2008, 2:19pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

In a Q & A before he retires from Microsoft on July 1, Gates mentioned that project. From C|net's coverage:

He is also involved in a project to map all of Africa, using Microsoft resources as well as contributions from Gates himself and his foundation.

I wonder if they'll use the Vexcel cameras?

The Q & A occurred before his keynote (with CEO Ballmer) at the Wall Street Journal's D conference. That's where the new touchscreen capabilities for Windows 7 were demoed. Interested in that? Video here.

via BetaNews

Topix.net

Zylog/FieldPower Fasttrack Review Write Up

Posted: May 19th, 2008, 5:24pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Have you have ever had to wait in your house or office for an engineer to turn up to fix something? If so, you probably appreciate a well run field service organisation that has invested in putting the ...

Slashgeo

Microsoft’s New Photo Geotagging Tool

Posted: May 19th, 2008, 3:57pm CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

The Free Geography Tools blog bring us news about this new tool. From their summary : "I covered Microsoft’s old photo geotagging tool WMMX Location Stamper a while ago in this post. Location Stamper uses Microsoft’s MapPoint maps in the display, which are already out-of-date, and I said it would be nice if they could add Virtual Earth to the app but wasn’t holding my breath. Good thing, because Microsoft has apparently abandoned that program in favor of a new one called Microsoft Pro Photo Tools. This is actually more than just a simple photo geotagging tool - it’s a full EXIF header editor, allowing individual or batch editing of metadata like description, keywords, copyright, date and time, etc. But here, I’ll talk mainly about the geotagging capabilities." For more information, please visit the blog.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.
WorldWide Telescope Released

Posted: May 13th, 2008, 2:03pm CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

As the Digital Earth Blog and Ogle Earth blog is reporting this morning, a beta version of WorldWide telescope has been released. You can grab the download directly from the MicroSoft site [www.worldwidetelescope.org] For more information and preliminary reviews, please visit the blog links above.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

Topix.net

Live Maps 2.0 Adds Advanced Visual Capabilities to Microsoft System Center

Posted: May 13th, 2008, 10:33am CEST

Tags: microsoft

Savision B.V. announced Live Maps 2.0 for System Center Operations Manager 2007, the industry's first seamlessly integrated visual mapping tool for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007.
Microsoft launches space tours on the Web

Posted: May 13th, 2008, 7:30am CEST

Tags: microsoft

A view of space from Microsoft's Worldwide Telescope Microsoft is ready to boldly take Web surfers where no man has gone before.
Microsoft launches space tours on the Web

Posted: May 13th, 2008, 6:30am CEST

Tags: microsoft

A view of space from Microsoft's Worldwide Telescope Microsoft is ready to boldly take Web surfers where no man has gone before.

Slashgeo

Rumor : WorldWide Telescope This Month

Posted: May 12th, 2008, 4:46pm CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

From the Map Room blog : "Digital Earth Blog notes reports that Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope may be released by the end of this month — or at least Bill Gates has been quoted saying that it will. I’ll be very interested to know the system requirements." In case you are not familiar with World Wide Telescope, please check out this relevant story article.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

All Points Blog

Microsoft Offer Citizen Services Platform Free to Municipal Govs; Soon VE templates

Posted: May 9th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

The Citizen Services Platform allows local government to create Web-based electronic government services. It's available to local and regional governments without fee, but they need to run"a Microsoft computing environment" for it to work.

For now it comes with:

E-Councilor templateA Windows Live Agent that allows messenger communication with a virtual government worker to ask questions.

Web TV template Allows government and citizen video hosting in Web 2.0 style.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 templates A set of 40 templates to customize scenarios that address site and system administration needs.

Local government communications template Sample portal with intranet and extranet templates.

Role-based My Site template Designed for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the My Site functionality.

Agenda Management template Allows organizations to streamline processes.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM templates for municipal governments Vertical templates, including reference data models, predefined work flows and role-based user experiences.

The interesting part: "a possible template incorporating Virtual Earth to give people localized, neighborhood-oriented services or access to information based on their geographical position."

- GCN

Slashgeo

Microsoft Sued Over Terraserver

Posted: May 8th, 2008, 9:51pm CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

All Points Blog reports that Microsoft is currently being sued by TerraServer.com over the use of the Terraserver name. From their summary : "Microsoft's TerraServer-USA satellite imagery project has been slapped with a trademark lawsuit from a small North Carolina company with a confusingly similar name. Terraserver.com filed the suit on Friday in North Carolina federal court, seeking monetary damages and asking that Microsoft be stopped from using the TerraServer name." For more information, please visit the All Points Blog.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

All Points Blog

Terraserver.com Sues Microsoft over TerraServer-usa.com

Posted: May 8th, 2008, 3:17pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

PCWorld carries the story.

In short:

Microsoft's TerraServer-USA satellite imagery project has been slapped with a trademark lawsuit from a small North Carolina company with a confusingly similar name.

Terraserver.com filed the suit on Friday in North Carolina federal court, seeking monetary damages and asking that Microsoft be stopped from using the TerraServer name.

Like the MapQuest/NavQuest suit (big guy sues little guy), I hope this one (little guy sues big guy) goes nowhere. The sad part, as Robert McMillan, who wrote the story suggested to me while we discussed the matter, Microsoft could just shut down Terraserver-usa.com, which would be a shame.
Realtor Buys out Mashup Technologists

Posted: May 6th, 2008, 2:29pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

The Realtor is John L. Scott Real Estate, one of the early implementers of Microsoft Virtual Earth for its business. (The company originally used ESRI and Google technology for its mapping.) Scott acquired nine person Real Tech, the consultancy that did the implementation work this week (press release, pdf, including Word markup...). Real Tech will become part of the in-house marketing team.

- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
No Map Dance for Microsoft, Yahoo

Posted: May 5th, 2008, 2:54pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

It's over for now between Microsoft and Yahoo (Microsoft abandoned their takeover attempt for Yahoo today), and while you won't see either company's mapping technology mentioned in the reports about the takeover attempt, location technology lurked in the background. Why? Well, the bid for Yahoo by Microsoft was all about strengthening the online presence of Mr. Softy. It's all about advertising, and not just online advertising. ALL ADVERTISING.
Continue reading "No Map Dance for Microsoft, Yahoo"

Slashgeo

Photosynth Featured On CSI

Posted: May 5th, 2008, 4:46am CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

The Virtual Earth blog has an article and video excerpt showing the use of PhotoSynth in an episode of CSI. From their summary: "This weeks episode of CSI featured Photosynth being used to recreate a high school gym in 3d from a set of photos taken by dozens of phone cameras. It was cool that they used Photosynth 'as is' with very little post production lipstick; its high-techy enough on its own without the need for the usual ridiculous embellishments TV and movies usually rely on to portray cutting edge tech." Go check out the video on the site above, as it's pretty good.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

Topix.net

Another Look at Fed Use of Google/Microsoft Tools for Mapping

Posted: April 25th, 2008, 5:21pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Federal Times takes a look at agencies tapping into Google and Microsoft tools for mapping applications .

Slashgeo

MS Virtual Earth Shapefile Overlay, Enhanced Safari Support and More

Posted: April 22nd, 2008, 6:04pm CEST by Satri

Tags: microsoft

Here's some recent Microsoft Virtual Earth related news. There's the information on overlaying data in shapefile format in Virtual Earth, also on the official MS VE blog. Then Microsoft announced Birds Eye view support for Apple's Safari browser, including the iPhone. The VE blog also provides a tutorial for: "In this tutorial I'll show you how to use Live Maps to build a Collection of Waypoints and then export them to your Portable Navigation Device." Note that MapQuest are Garmin planned a similar feature. And finally, an entry on the use of MS Birds Eye view for domestic solar energy estimation.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

All Points Blog

Microsoft Updates Live Search News - With Geo

Posted: April 17th, 2008, 4:05pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Perhaps lost among all the data and client updates of Yahoo, Google and Microsoft recently was this tidbit:

Another feature of the service presents local news stories based on a user's IP address, so users based in Washington will get a strip of results from Washington newspapers and television stations on one side of the page.

Not huge nor unique, but at least Microsoft is looking into local/hyperlocal for news. My first experience with Live Search News was not great - while the IP address of my machine did put me in Massachusetts, all the articles were from the Worcester Telegram. That's a fine paper, but based about 45 miles away. Only one of the 10 stories listed was "near me" in Boston.

- Seattle Times

Slashgeo

Impressive Upgrade to Virtual Earth 3D

Posted: April 11th, 2008, 4:36pm CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

The Google Earth Blog brings us news of this pretty impressive Virtual Earth 3D update. The screenshots alone should tell the story, so please head on over there for more information. As if the pics on the Google Earth Blog weren't amazing enough, they also let us know about this blog which also sports pretty amazing pics showing before and after. Update: 04/11 15:11 GMT by S : This is indeed a major update, here's the list of new items from the GEB: Improved 3D buildings, Export to KML, 3D Modeling Improved Also, Bird's Eye Enhanced, MapCruncher integration (see also SA on MapCruncher), Explore Collections, Movie Capture, Real-time Traffic, Improved KML Support. Additionally, Mapperz offers a list of improvements for the new Virtual Earth API version 6.1. For VE enthusiasts, a Slashgeo reader named Eric submitted the MapForums VE blogs monitor page.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

All Points Blog

Multimap Steps in for Live Maps in UK

Posted: April 11th, 2008, 3:20pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Update 5/7/08: This from Matthew Gain, Citizenship and PR Manager, Online Services Group, UK
[Business Consultant to Microsoft Limited]

We recently announced the integration of Multimap into Live Search in the UK and will start to route users directly to the Multimap service from MSN UK and Live.com from 9th May.

Continue reading "Update 2: Multimap Steps in for Live Maps in UK"

Slashgeo

Microsoft Partners With IGN

Posted: April 10th, 2008, 1:48pm CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

I found this in an Ogle Earth news summary. Good news for Virtual Earth adopters. More coverage overseas is coming. The MapForums [Community of VE/MapPoint Users and Developers] reports about Mircrosoft latest partnership to get more imagery. From their summary : "Institut Géographique National (IGN), a French leader in cartography and aerial imagery, and Microsoft Corp today announced a five-year partnership at Geo-événement 2008, a leading trade show for geo-information specialists in France. The partnership will allow Microsoft to license IGN’s aerial imagery of France and make this available on the Microsoft Virtual Earth platform and through Microsoft Live Search Maps." Head on over to MapForums to get the full story.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

All Points Blog

Microsoft Enhances Traffic Modeling on Live.com

Posted: April 10th, 2008, 1:32pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Clearflow, built on artificial intelligence concepts, is set to launch today, per the New York Times. The new modeling, available for 72 U.S. cities is said to better model flow during congestion events on both highways and side streets. The latter, reports the Times, are often assumed to be clear when the highway is packed. Routes suggested by the online service may be counter-intuitive and may suggest staying on a crowded highway.

The technology comes from Microsoft Research which had Microsoft employees voluntarily carry GPS devices to collect data. The system, which uses traffic sensors as base data, can predict congestion based on time of day, weather and other variables like sporting events.

With traffic sites and services a dime a dozen, the trick will be to differentiate this offering. One challenge, per Greg Sterling, it's complicated: "This is a sophisticated layer of technology that will not be easily understood by the average person. Sure, that's true. Microsoft need only convince drivers that it got them to their destination faster that would otherwise be possible, not explain how it works. Alas, knowing how long it would have taken going "the other way" is not easy to calculate.
High Praise for Virtual Earth

Posted: April 7th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

"The Weather Channel Desktop also edges the competition, notably WeatherBug, in map quality, the former having switched to dynamic maps provided by Microsoft Virtual Earth that are complete with undulating cloud patterns in various levels of transparency."

- Jessica Dolcourt on C|net's Download Blog

Slashgeo

Virtual Earth March Update

Posted: March 27th, 2008, 2:06pm CET by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

Virtual Earth, An Evangelist's Blog posts about this big Virtual Earth update. It's tons of data (40tb), and this includes Birdseye and Ortho photos. To see the full list, please visit the blogs link. It's also very nice to see that the coverage is starting to expand heavily over seas (not just the US). Virtual Earth seems to be gaining a lot of traction.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.
Upcoming Virtual Earth 6.1 Features

Posted: March 26th, 2008, 7:08pm CET by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

nateirwin.net currently has a post about the upcoming Virtual Earth release scheduled for April 10th. From their summary, here is a list of upcoming features : "Enhanced experiences with bird's eye view in 3D, and new bird's eye hybrid view..." Reverse geocoding for U.S. users. Walking directions for North America and European Union users. Traffic-based driving directions. New cross-browser support. Improved printing support for maps. For more information and relevant links, please visit the nateirwin blog.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

All Points Blog

What if you held a SQL Server Spatial webinar and no one knew about it?

Posted: March 24th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Tags: microsoft

Jithen Singh's mention of TODAY's live "Map Your Data With Microsoft SQL Sever 2008 Spatial Features" webinar put on by Microsoft gave me pause. I'd not seen anything about it until this post. It bothered me since I'm supposed to know what's going on! I read the geo blogs daily and I would think I'd have seen it. Maybe I don't read the right blogs?

A quick search of Google (Web and blogs) shows ONLY Singh's post noting it. A search using MSN live (Web and feeds) turns up just the event listing in an MSN feed.

Perhaps it's an oddity of the Web? Perhaps Microsoft didn't want the world to know about the live event? (Anyone, it seems can register, so long as they have a LiveID.) Maybe they want most folks to watch the replay? Perhaps Microsoft is still shoring up communications for SQL Server Spatial?
Microsoft Opens Up Flight Simultor Dev Platform; VE Inetergration to Come?

Posted: March 19th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Tags: microsoft

GCN reports that moving to such a kit, called Flight Simulator ESP, aimed at real simulation, not just games, took quite some time as the source data used needed to be relicensed. Licensing is relatively "cheap" with the dev kit running at $99, and client licenses at $799. Full simulators run $15 -20 million.

The potential futures are most interesting for geospatial and BIM:

Microsoft is already planning to expand ESPs simulation capabilities, so we might see a host of other affordable simulation products reach market soon. In 2009, the company plans to release ESP 2.0, which will include ground capabilities for missions by trucks, tanks and other vehicles. In 2011, ESP 3.0 is projected to introduce support for maritime scenarios and building interiors.

Another promising avenue being explored is integration with Microsoft Virtual Earth. Virtual Earth has real data, but they dont have the experiential side of it, said McCahill, whose team has already done some work with Virtual Earth and developed demonstrations he described as impressive.

We have done the work to prove it can be done, he said. We are taking the real data and making it very interactive.

McCahill said he hopes integration with Virtual Earth might be possible in the next version, though I dont want to commit to that because it takes two teams.

Slashgeo

DeepZoom spatially embedded documents

Posted: March 16th, 2008, 12:29am CET by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

Randy George writes "Using Deep Zoom Composer, images can be inserted at various locations within the zoom pyramid. This means full images of ... documents, html pages, schematics, data records, photos ... can be inserted down at lower levels of a main image’s zoom. Here is an experiment from a geospatial perspective looking at potential for this type of DeepZoom imagery. Live demonstration at GIS in XML"
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

All Points Blog

Microsoft Research Confirms Milgram Study with IM

Posted: March 14th, 2008, 1:49pm CET

Tags: microsoft

Eric Horvitz of Microsoft Research along with an intern, Jure Leskovec, used 30 billion Microsoft Messenger conversations among 240 million people during June 2006 to find "degrees of separation" of individuals. (The data did not include personal details.)

Bottom line: "The researchers found that the average shortest number of jumps to get from one Microsoft user to another was 6.6." Stanley Migram's experiments used the mail, but arrived at what is now referred to as "six degrees of separation."

- Asian News International

Slashgeo

BMNG SilverLight 2.0 Beta Deep Zoom

Posted: March 7th, 2008, 5:40pm CET by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

From the GIS in XML blog : "One of the many announcements at the MIX08 conference is the availability of Deep Zoom technology for Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1. This results from an R&D program in Microsoft called Sea Dragon. Sea Dragon was evidently a Microsoft acquisition awhile back. Reminiscent of Keyhole(now google earth), Sea Dragon is a tool for smooth viewing of very large image resources. The novelty is to have it useable inside a SilverLight browser view." For links to a live demonstration of Silverlight and more info on the Blue Marble project, visit the GIS in XML blog.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

All Points Blog

Microsoft Shows of More "Phone as Sensor" Options

Posted: March 5th, 2008, 1:00pm CET

Tags: microsoft

Microsoft Research shows off its latest idea each year at TechFest. Among those of geo-interest this year were:

LucidTouch allows users to touch an alternate location to activate a touch screen. The demo showed users touching the back of a display. The big leap? Such a system gets around the fat finger problem - where a big finger hides what is of interest, or is not "fine enough" to zero in on a button or area of interest.

Another technology, unnamed, taps into cell phones, armed with accelerometers, to capture information about the commute - where potholes are, when and where horns are honked. The data is sent to a server for use by drivers to find the best route. I guess it could also be used to indentify where roads need to be repaired.

- InfoWorld

Slashgeo

Sneak Peek at Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope

Posted: March 2nd, 2008, 2:34pm CET by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

Slashdot has all the information about this. This is most follow up to the Google Sky product MSFT was working on. There is a pretty good video demonstration, so please visit slashdot to get the link and discussion items. Update : I just noticed Ogle Earth has a great review of the whole thing. Please visit their page for a highly detailed overview. Update : The Google Earth Blog has also done an extensive review of this. Check out their page for more information. Here is their summary : "Ted.com has a great sneak peek at Microsoft's new WorldWide Telescope project. In this video, presented by Roy Gould and Curtis Wong, you are able to see a combined view of satellites and telescopes from all over the planet and nearby space. The compiled image is rendered using Microsoft's new high-performance "Visual Experience Engine" that allows users to pan and zoom across the night sky seamlessly."
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

James Fee GIS Blog

Ed Katibah is blogging

Posted: March 1st, 2008, 6:06am CET by James Fee

Tags: microsoft

Ed Katibah, who has a long history with IBM and Informix and is now the spatial project manager for Microsoft’s SQL Server, is blogging.

Ed on Spatial

Slashgeo

February Microsoft Geonews: Big VE Update, WWT, ESRI and more

Posted: February 29th, 2008, 1:15pm CET by Satri

Tags: microsoft

We warned our readers about some geonews being published at a slower rate than usual but claimed that you won't miss anything major. Here's Microsoft geonews wrap-up for February. Let's start with the big data update announced this week with new birds eye and 3D cities in Virtual Earth, including significant additions in Portugal, Italy, and Austria. There was also a data update in January detailed here. Here's more on the upcoming World Wide Telescope (WWT), dubbed by many as Microsoft's answer to Google Sky (previously this month). Here's a demonstration of the video recording function over new VE 3D buildings in Paris. Here's a video including Jack Dangermond on the ESRI-Microsoft partnership. There's also two important customers migrating to the Virtual Earth platform: YellowBook and Windermere. There's also a way to show Google My Maps data in Virtual Earth (via OE). APB links to an analysis of the local component of the possible Microsoft-Yahoo! merger. Several other Microsoft-related geonews were shared recently.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

All Points Blog

Tech Review on PhotoSynth

Posted: February 19th, 2008, 2:48pm CET

Tags: microsoft

The article offers up history and asks the question "what's it for?"

The key bits:

- the team hopes to release it by end of the year
- the most promising potential use:
"One is to integrate it more fully with Microsoft Virtual Earth, making it that tool that takes users to the next step in deep zoom. "

Slashgeo

Microsoft’s Answer To Google Earth Sky

Posted: February 19th, 2008, 3:16am CET by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

The Digital Earth Blog posted an article with about this. From their summary : "According to TechCrunch, Microsoft is set to unveil a product called “Worldwide Telescope” on February 27. " "Users will be able to pan around the nighttime sky and zoom as far in to any one area as the data will allow. Microsoft is said to be tapping the Hubble telescope as well as ten or so earth bound telescopes around the world for data. When you find an area you like, you can switch to a number of different views, such as infrared and non-visible light." For a more detailed summary and a link to the original article, please visit the Digital Earth Blog.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

All Points Blog

Windows Enterprise Launch Feb 27; SQL Server Late

Posted: February 18th, 2008, 1:00pm CET

Tags: microsoft

Microsoft has planned the launch of Visual Studio (VS) 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 for Feb 27th. One thing to note: SQL Server 2008, the version geo folks have been waiting for, due to its geospatial support, will be late.

SQL Server was set to ship later than Windows Server or Visual Studio, but the target date has now slipped by a full quarter, according to a Jan. 26 blog post by Francois Ajenstat, director of SQL Server product management. Ajenstat insists the delay won't detract from this month's launch event.

The next Customer Technology Preview (this will be #6) may well be released on Feb 27. This CTP is expected to have 99% of the full final technology.
- Redmond Developer News

Slashgeo

NYC Transit Adopts Virtual Earth

Posted: February 13th, 2008, 5:38am CET by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

Virtual Earth For Government blog reports the following : "Arguably the largest transit in the world, New York City Transit, today announced that it has released a new version of its Trip Planner online travel itinerary service. The service, which allows visitors and residents to get walking directions for their travel itinerary within the City, now features Virtual Earth maps, providing a much richer visualization experience. " For a more detailed summary and a link to the press release, please visit the Virtual Earth For Government blog.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

All Points Blog

ALK to Use Microsoft Local Search

Posted: February 8th, 2008, 3:26pm CET

Tags: microsoft

While Yahoo and Google's local search have been tapped for satnav tools to date, this is the first I've heard of a company tapping into Microsoft's offering. The company's offering is called CoPilot.

Future versions of the system promise the ability to tap into live online reservation systems, thereby helping users make an informed selection.

ALK said that, unlike many mobile-based GPS systems, CoPilot maps are stored on the device so data transfer is limited and access is faster and more reliable.

The new system will be provided as a free download to all existing CoPilot users in the coming months.

- IT Week

Slashgeo

Microsoft adds Caligari to Virtual Earth Team

Posted: February 8th, 2008, 1:29pm CET by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

The Digital Earth Blog reports : "Microsoft has just announced that they have added Caligari, makers of the 3D modeling software trueSpace, to their to their Virtual Earth team. Plans for implementing Caligari into Virtual Earth have not been revealed, but it certainly has a lot of potential. One item that I’ve seen mentioned a few times already is the possiblity of a “Second Life” type of feature, or perhaps just another way to put high-quality 3D into the globe. " For more information and links to the official announcement, please visit the Digital Earth Blog.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

All Points Blog

Microsoft Acquires Caligari, creator of 3D authoring tools

Posted: February 7th, 2008, 2:24am CET

Tags: microsoft

Caligari "is bringing its 22 years of experience in 3D collaborative authoring tools" to the Virtual Earth team, per the Virtual Earth for Government blog. The company's key product is trueSpace. More from the Virtual Earth/Live Maps blog here.

I think I've heard of the company from my days in CAD. Perhaps the CAD folks will have something to say about this?
Comparing MS/Yahoo Maps Offering for Potential Integration

Posted: February 5th, 2008, 3:36pm CET

Tags: microsoft

Search Engine Land's Greg Sterling offers up a look at the MS/Yahoo potential pairing through the lens of local search. He compares the company's offerings in Yellow Pages, real estate, events and local search.

What strikes me from the analysis: Microsoft often has the edge in Tech, but Yahoo has the brand.
Tribute for Jim Gray Planned

Posted: February 5th, 2008, 3:13pm CET

Tags: microsoft

C|net provides details on the tribute (not memorial) planned for UC Berkeley on May 31st. The Microsoft researcher credited with many innovations in mapping/computer science was the first computer science PhD at the school. A worldwide search using Amazon and Google technology attempted to find Gray after his boat disappeared last January after setting sail from San Fransisco.

James Fee GIS Blog

Tiled Vectors in Virtual Earth

Posted: February 1st, 2008, 11:37pm CET by James Fee

Tags: microsoft

Bill Thorp’s great idea becomes a Microsoft Research Project. Bill notes:

Their demo makes one thing obvious, however. Douglas-Peucker just doesn’t cut it for topologies. This becomes a non-issue with a pixel-level of detail, but just looks bad in their demo. Their implementation doesn’t seem to preserve existing points between zooms; it’s probably just as efficient this way.

Read about it and then view the demo. When you think about the performance here of the polyline data set with 50,000 segments in it you really start to see why this is impressive. Vish has even more thoughts on the project.

Slashgeo

Microsoft Extends Map Site To China

Posted: January 23rd, 2008, 2:27pm CET by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

Cnet is currently running an article detailing this. From their summary : "Microsoft has launched Live Search 地图, the China branch of its Virtual Earth project. Compared to Google's ditu.google.cn and Sogou's (搜狗) map.sogou.com, the seems about the same, if a little faster--though traffic may still be low. What Google and Microsoft have in common is that the maps contain listings for restaurants, banks, and other locations rendered as icons on the map. Sogou has no such advantage, but sometimes it resolves addresses better than Google." For more detailed information and links to the live site, please visit the cnet article link.
Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

Topix.net

Rumor: Microsoft To Buy ESRI?

Posted: August 9th, 2005, 8:30am CEST

Tags: microsoft

Wow. That's a big rumor. A colleauge and friend who is intimately familiar with geographic information systems , writes, "Just to give you a sense of the kind of firestorm that is raging through the world of ...

TOP RSS Atom Gregarius 0.5.5 Tentatively valid XHTML1.0, CSS2.0 Last Update: Sat 05 Jul 2008 11:31:19 PM CEST

GISWiki.NEWS.Reader » Tags » microsoft

Feeds

56 items tagged "microsoft"

Posted: July 2nd, 2008, 3:57pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: June 27th, 2008, 3:29pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: June 16th, 2008, 3:08pm CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

Posted: June 12th, 2008, 11:58pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: June 9th, 2008, 2:00pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: June 6th, 2008, 7:08pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: June 6th, 2008, 5:07pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: June 6th, 2008, 3:07pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: June 6th, 2008, 11:35am CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: June 3rd, 2008, 8:00am CEST

Enclosure: [download]

Tags: microsoft

Posted: June 2nd, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: May 28th, 2008, 2:19pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: May 19th, 2008, 5:24pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: May 19th, 2008, 3:57pm CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

Posted: May 13th, 2008, 2:03pm CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

Posted: May 13th, 2008, 10:33am CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: May 13th, 2008, 7:30am CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: May 13th, 2008, 6:30am CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: May 12th, 2008, 4:46pm CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

Posted: May 9th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: May 8th, 2008, 9:51pm CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

Posted: May 8th, 2008, 3:17pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: May 6th, 2008, 2:29pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: May 5th, 2008, 2:54pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: May 5th, 2008, 4:46am CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

Posted: April 25th, 2008, 5:21pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: April 22nd, 2008, 6:04pm CEST by Satri

Tags: microsoft

Posted: April 17th, 2008, 4:05pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: April 11th, 2008, 4:36pm CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

Posted: April 11th, 2008, 3:20pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: April 10th, 2008, 1:48pm CEST by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

Posted: April 10th, 2008, 1:32pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: April 7th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Posted: March 27th, 2008, 2:06pm CET by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

Posted: March 26th, 2008, 7:08pm CET by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft

Posted: March 24th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Tags: microsoft

Posted: March 19th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Tags: microsoft

Posted: March 16th, 2008, 12:29am CET by lxnyce

Tags: microsoft