More Mapping Software - MS vs Everyone
MSNBC.com and others ask Did Microsoft wipe Apple off the map? "As software rivals, Microsoft wants to wipe Apple Computer off the map. With Microsoft's new Web service for satellite photographs, did the world's largest software company find a way to do exactly that?"
"Internet sleuths discovered that anyone using Microsoft's new 'Virtual Earth' Web site for a bird's-eye view of Apple's corporate headquarters saw only a grainy overhead photograph of what appears to be a single, nondescript warehouse and a deserted parking lot -- not Apple's sprawling campus, with 11 modern buildings surrounding a plush courtyard. (MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.)" I cobbled together the comparison discussed in the article (click on the image for a larger version). Yup. It looks pretty blatant.
The article also mentions that "Google's mapping site includes color aerial photographs from October 2002 with more detail for Apple's neighborhood, provided by the U.S. Geological Survey."
"One satellite expert said companies should provide more details, such as the date for each photograph, to help Internet users make sense of these images. 'It's a problem, one of the real challenges. There's a reason why most pictures in magazines and newspapers have captions,' said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org. 'What's missing from this imagery is, there are no captions to tell you when the image was acquired or what you're seeing or why you should care.'"
This is something both companies need to improve. There are some glaring problems with the imagery quality, too, though I have to give the nod to Google overall. Consider this comparison of bad vs. worse. No wonder some Muslims don't like the West. At least Google got the name politically-correct (pun intended).
Other pros and cons? Let's look at Google Earth (v 3.0.0395 Beta) first.
- Pro: Motion, motion, motion. My golly, but it's fun to fly from place to place on the globe. Makes me a bit dizzy at times, but it's worth it. I've never seen my regular drive from southcentral Pennsylvania to southern Maine and back this way before.
- Con: The 'Places' list needs more organization tools. It's tough to keep an orderly pattern to the views I've bookmarked.
- Pro: Bookmarks in the Places list allow for detailed view manipulation, including a variety of place markers, room for copious notes, and great integration of said information with the chosen view.
- Con: The roads overlay doesn't always align well with the roads in the photo images.
- Con: Entering known coordinates for places seldom align with the images of the places. For example, both Mount Everest and Mount Fuji are off by a few degrees. Good thing they are big and hard to miss.
- Con: If you are a consumer, try MS Virtual Earth first, then use Google Earth for more information or just for fun.
- Pro: Installing client software for working with the online databases gives much more flexibility to the images, allows for easy sharing with groups (of which there appear to me many) or individuals, and allows for more tools.
- Con: The client software takes up a fair bit of hard drive real estate.
- Pro: Quite a few means to communicate data with others, including a BBS.
- Con: No way to work offline or export movies.
- Pro: Image flexibility the use of customizable layers, the image plane can be tilted (as well as rotated), and a 3-D feel.
- Pro: Web-based interface means
- No client software cluttering up the hard drive
- Your work "travels" with you from machine-to-machine if you are an MSN member.
- "Live" updates of software just by accessing the site.
- Some digiterati favor this interface. Click here to see why.
- Con: The Web-based software doesn't allow the cache flexibility of client-based software so imagery flexibility is weaker. For example, the image plane can't be tilted.
- Pro: While still black and white, the resolution of some images beats Google.
- Con: Controls are not at all touchpad-friendly.
- Con: Road illustratons can't be overlayed on the photos (like using a highlighter on a paper map), though with the clarity I saw this shouldn't be too much of a problem.
- Con: Street names cannot be removed from the images (i.e., they aren't an overlay).
- Con: No motion. Okay, maybe it's not needed, but it's rather fun.
- Pro: If you are a consumer, try this service first.
- Con: While probably designed to be easy to use, tools tend to display over the image, thus blocking parts that might need to be seen.
- Pro: Switching locations via the Scratch Pad is fast and painless because there is no motion -- just a cut, to use a movie editing term.
- Pro: The image of my Mom's house and a few other places important to me are better than Google's versions (though still B&W).
- Get more images of common or historical places such as Stonehenge, Israel, Hiroshima and others.
- Enable the user to gather information about the image. Knowing resolution plus date and time of capture would be as useful as the copyright information that is on every image.
- Offline cache, please. Those of us with laptops sometimes find ourselves away from any Internet connection (i.e., civiliazation).
- Look at other satellite image sites on the Web. They don't pixelate or airbrush government buildings to distort them. Yes, I'm know that this will help lazy terrorists, but it's not hard to get this information. I've seen plenty of pictures featuring the roof of the White House taken by people in airplanes.
- Make is easier to plot a preferred route. Virtual Earth allows some modification (much as other Web-based services do), but no service or software that I've ever tried beats a map and a pen for custom routes.
- Microsoft needs to tie their product into Encarta. This would be like a 'Live' version of the Encarta mapping product that was available in the 1990s.
- Someone needs to talk to The National Geographic Society. Now. That would be the ultimate partnership.
- And both need to get a picture of my house when the lawn is mowed. It's pretty obvious that both images were taken on different days, but couldn't someone have gotten the timimg better?
