Bing Maps now using Nokia Backend services for Traffic and Geocoding

Last year, Microsoft announced a strategic partnership with Nokia in Mapping. Our two companies have spent a lot of time working together, sharing information and investigating better ways provide relevant mapping information to help you find and get to where you’re going more quickly. Today, we’re excited to announce another important phase in that partnership with the launch of Nokia powered traffic results, which are rolling out today in 24 countries on Bing Maps.

The following countries will see improvements through Bing Maps as a result of our use of Nokia services:

· Austria

· Belgium

· Brazil

· Canada

· Finland

· France

· Germany

· Greece

· India

· Indonesia

· Ireland

· Italy

· Luxembourg

· Mexico

· Netherlands

· Poland

· Portugal

· Russia

· Saudi Arabia

· South Africa

· Spain

· Sweden

· Switzerland

· UAE

· United Kingdom

· US

New countries with Traffic

São Paulo, Brazil

Johannesburg, South Africa

Moscow, Russia

Mumbai, India

Improved Traffic

We’re also improving our existing traffic coverage in the US to include traffic information for side streets in addition to freeway traffic information. See below for enhanced coverage in Seattle.

Seattle, Washington

In addition to these traffic improvements, Bing Maps will also start to use Nokia’s geocoding services in a number of countries offering improved directions. This update, while not always visible to users, is another important milestone in our partnership to build the world’s best mapping platform using Nokia and Microsoft’s assets.

Thanks to our friends at Nokia for their dedication along the way. Together we have enabled a stronger Bing Maps experience and we hope Bing users in these respective countries reap the benefits of our partnership, notice an increase in address search relevance, and enjoy the addition of traffic information – especially those of you in the US who are adventurous enough to travel during the Memorial Day holiday!

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Google Earth: Imagery Update Last Week of August

The Google Earth and Google Maps Imagery Team just published a new batch of aerial and satellite imagery, and as always, there’s all kinds of fascinating sites and features to check out.

We’re now deep into the dog days of summer. When I was growing up in Chicago, my siblings and I would be acting a bit stir crazy by this time in our summer breaks. So what did our wise parents do? They’d pile us into the confined space of the family car and proceed to road-trip it for a few weeks. My parents are history buffs, so our destination spots were typically of historical significance. To commemorate these fond memories, in this post we’ll look at locales seen in our newly published imagery that would typically fit the destination profile of my family.

Our first example seen below is from high-resolution aerial imagery acquired this past June. The locale is a U.S. National Park located in San Juan County, New Mexico and contains 11th to 13th century structures constructed by the Anasazi Indians, the ancestors of the more commonly known Pueblo Indians. This site is included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.

Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico

Family vacations outside of the U.S. happened on occasion and when they did, my dad’s fondness for Led Zeppelin would often lead us to any castle or related ruin in sight. In this aerial image, we can see the Broch of Gurness village located on the northwestern coast of Mainland Orkney, Scotland. The top of the central, circular broch structure has collapsed, and we can see the settlement remains that encircle the broch. The site dates to at least 60 AD.

Broch of Gurness, Scotland

Finally, if we were good children and did not get our peanut butter sandwiches all over the car upholstery, we might be treated to visit a place such as the National Toy Hall of Fame, located in the Strong National Museum of Play, Rochester, New York. Some of the 47-and-counting enshrined toys include road-trip friendly icons such as the stick, cardboard box, ball, and of course Silly Putty!

National Toy Hall of Fame, Rochester, New York

Do you have a place you love for which you’d like to receive a notification when the Earth and Maps Imagery team updates the site? We’ve got just the tool: The Follow Your World application!

As always, these are but a few examples of the types of features that can be seen and discovered in our latest batch of published imagery. Happy exploring!

High Resolution Aerial Updates:

USA: Abilene, TX; Avenal, CA; Bakersfield, CA; Big Spring, TX; Bowie, AZ; Buckeye, AZ; Carlsbad, NM; Casa Grande, AZ; Columbia, MO; Dalhart, TX; Dayton, OH; Des Moines, IA; Farmington, NM; Ft Worth, TX; Joplin, MO; Junction, TX; Monahans, TX; Nogales, AZ; Omaha, NE; Paducah, KY; Payson, AZ; Rochester, NY; Sacramento, CA; Sioux City, IA; Tulsa, OK; Visalia, CA; Wilcox, AZ

Scotland: Aberdeenshire, Clova, Islay, Jura, the Orkney Islands, and the Shetland Islands

Sweden: Dalarnas Län, Gotlands Län, Norrbottens Län, Oland, Örebro Län, Västerbottens Län, and Västernorrlands Län

Countries/Regions receiving High Resolution Satellite Updates:

Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antarctica, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Cuba, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Georgia, Ghana, Greece, Greenland, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Laos, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, North Korea, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Republic of the Congo, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Svalbard, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, Wallis and Futuna, Western Sahara, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe

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Mapping History with Google Maps

Maps & Motion

Maps+Motion is a great way to visualise the growth of Dutch cities and Manhattan in New York with Google Maps.

Essentially the application allows you to view side-by-side the modern maps of cities with maps of how the cities looked at different times in history. The screenshot above, for example, shows a map of 1450 Amsterdam with a modern map of the city.

The application currently allows you to view the historical growth of Den Haag, Harrlingen, Amsterdam, Leiden, Rotterdam and Zuiderzee in the Netherlands and Manhattan in the USA.

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Google Earth: Expanded 3D Buildings

Looking for new 3D cities to explore in far off places? Well, you’re in luck! We’ve been hard at work expanding our 3D coverage by adding ten of thousands of 3D buildings to these cities:

Berkeley, California USA
Cologne, Germany
The Hague, Netherlands

See the new buildings for yourself with the “3D Buildings” layer in Google Earth or by using Google Maps with Earth view.

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New Google Imagery – Week of May 16th

The Google Earth and Google Maps Imagery Team has just published its latest batch of satellite and aerial imagery, and as always, there are all kinds of fascinating sites and features to check out.

It’s mid-May and summer is just around the corner. That means vacation! And since many of us like to head to the water for our leisure time, we’ve compiled examples of a few coastal areas that have received updated imagery in our latest release.
In the States, premiere beach vacation spots include the coral-sand beaches that line Miami, Florida. Below is a stretch of the world-famous South Beach within the City of Miami Beach’s City Center district. This high-resolution aerial image was taken this past March, during Spring Break.

44th St. Beach, Miami, Florida

If hot, crowded beaches aren’t your thing, there are many cooler places (literally) you could spend your leisure time exploring. Below is a high-resolution aerial image from this past April of Bear Glacier in the Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska. In this image, you can see the glacier toe as well as the ice, meltwater, and debris it deposits. This valley outflow glacier is sourced from the Harding Icefield, the largest icefield contained entirely within the United States. If you’re viewing this in Google Earth, be sure to use the Historical Imagery time slider to view how the glacier’s size has changed over time.

Bear Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

Finally, here’s a recent satellite image of the entertainment center in the bustling coastal city of Qingdao, in the Shandong Province, China. The city was named China’s most livable city in 2009, and from the image below you can understand why; there are many places to enjoy such as beaches, sport complexes, and the beautiful public space, Hui Quan Square. Indeed, a nice place to visit and explore on your next summer vacation – whether it’s in-person or online. When viewing this area in Google Earth or Maps, you can also explore other parts of the image, such as the finishing touches being put on the Haiwan Bridge, the world’s largest water bridge, spanning 26.4 miles.

Hui Quan Square, Qingdao, China

Do you have a place you love for which you’d like to receive a notification when the Earth and Maps Imagery team updates the site? We’ve got just the tool: The Follow Your World application!

As always, these are but a few examples of the types of features that can be seen and discovered in our latest batch of published imagery. Happy exploring!

High Resolution Aerial Updates:
USA: Myrtle Beach, Miami, Palm Beach, Lake City, Lynchburg, Lenoir, Dallas, Grand Rapids, Anchorage, Kenai, Tyonek

Countries/Regions receiving High Resolution Satellite Updates:
Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antarctica, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Canada, Cape Verde, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, French Guiana, Gambia, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Guam, Guatemala, Haiti, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jan Mayen, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Lithuania, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, North Korea, Norway, Pakistan, Palmyra Atoll, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, St. Helena, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sudan, Suriname, Svalbard, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, West Bank, Western Sahara, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe

These updates are now available in both Google Maps and Google Earth. To get a complete picture of where we updated imagery, download this KML for viewing in Google Earth.

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