In your face Google Maps!
By Yazan MalakhaI love rich and useful products. Google Maps is one, we’ve seen loads of variations and uses for it, from frappr, a technology that allows you to map who reads your blog or listen to your podcast. To MusicianMix, a service that allows you to look up artists and musical teachers based on distance.
The API is rich, well updated and fun to play with. But even with an open API and the emensive resouces Google has; I haven’t yet seen anything like Microsoft Live Local technical preview found at http://preview.local.live.com/. The service makes use of Virtual Earth API and allows the user to drag a car around the map and see streetlevel pictures of the area you’re going through.
The service is compatible with both Firefox and Internet Explorer and is completely written in AJAX, really impressive stuff. It asynchronously preloads and caches pictures based on the angle of the car. Mind you this is just a technical preview; future improvements could include GPS locations would would allow Geotagging, etc.
If you’re interested in a technical insight into the service I suggest you head over to channel 9 and watch this video. If you’re low on bandwidth I suggest you head over and read scobles entry on this:
They took a van with 10 cameras to Seattle and San Francisco (more cities coming soon) and built quite a remarkable AJAX app. Lots of fun. Drive your own car down the streets of San Francisco. Oh, and you can search for the closest Starbucks, too! It’s like playing a video game. Driving through tunnels is a lot of fun! How many images? Seattle alone is 10 million images. What a database!
Speaking of AJAX i should get back to work! Enjoy dragging your car around.
Note: Looking at the page with no style would provide you with an insight on how it works and what pictures are preloaded as you move the car around.
March 2nd, 2006 at 2:15 am
cool! sayyara gear willa automatic?