Geek Humor

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Ever since Google brought out their Maps product and proudly declared the arrival of slick Map interfaces to the World, there has been intense competition for cool mapping products. MapQuest is one of the first companies to put out commercial street data out to the public. During those times (I am talking about a year or so ago), Microsoft featured a "lazy" interface to Satellite Data. They called it TerraServer USA, with mostly black-and-white satellite images for the US, with horrible resolution Then came Google, and integrated both street maps and satellite data, and then followed it up by a "Hybrid" view - a combination of satellite images and digitized road lines. Not only they did it uniquely (interface-wise), they did it more accurately (road locations, etc) compared to ther competitors.

I ridiculed Microsoft's attempt on their Live Local, a Google Maps like interface, as just a "mere catching up" with the big daddy Google. However, when I saw their super clear "bird's eye view" pictures, I was completely surprised. These bird's eye view images, available in most of the major urban areas, show a very close, crisp, clear aerial view. Try looking at Manhattan, you will know what I mean. If you are familiar with mapping, you would realize how hard it is to fly, compile, and put out such a high quality imagery.

Now, Microsoft now added another super cool functionality to their Local Live page. They call it "Live Local Technology Preview". The idea is to give the user an experience similar to that of driving around or walking through the streets. Take a look at http://preview.local.live.com/ to see what I mean. (I like driving the race car in the opposite direction on a one-way road*) You can choose a sports car, race car, or walk, and just move your cursor around and let AJAX take care of the rest of it!

I have heard of Amazon.com putting up the pictures of the brick-and-mortar storefronts of their vendors...But in my view, this is waaay cooler than any other feature I have seen so far. And oh, the good ol' AskJeeves.com, now know was Ask.com has put a Google-like interface for their maps.

What are we going to see next? May be, features like 3D tilting, animated fly-by views are some of the features that I look forward to.

The Summary: When geeks compete, cool products emerge! Rock on!

*Disclaimer: This is a disclaimer

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