From The Knowledge Chamber site…Virtual Earth continues to evolve and support a very robust programming model which allows developers to create unique and interesting mapping applications. One of the most recent developments is that there is a brand new Virtual Earth Mapping control which uses Silverlight for rendering. This provides for a far richer control which gives the developer almost unlimited potential in what they can do. In this episode I've got Chris Pendleton on hand to help us understand some of the benefits of this new control and show us some of its capabilities. Click to watch this episode.

CP

Microsoft Virtual Earth now has a new name (and it’s not Kumo or Kiev). First, a little background to ensure we’re all on the same page. As of yesterday….

Live Search Maps was our consumer maps offering. This is the web site you go to for maps, aerial photos, directions, searching for points of interest and creating collections of your own personal data to store in the cloud. Live Search Maps is now called Bing Maps. Bing! That’s right, you know you’re going to do it every time you see the name. Bing! I digress.

Microsoft Virtual Earth was our enterprise mapping platform. This was the set of APIs you would leverage to embed maps into your web site along with overlay data in the form of pushpins, polygons, polylines, raster overlays, etc. etc. Microsoft Virtual Earth is now called “Bing Maps for Enterprise.”

Now, the fun part. What does that mean for all the other properties?

MapPoint Web Service will remain MapPoint Web Service. Photosynth will remain Photosynth. Well, this is a lot of work to go through each one, so I took the liberty of interviewing one of our Corporate Vice Presidents in Search, Erik Jorgensen, to discuss this hot topic. Watch this video and all of your questions about the new Bing brand will be answered.

Be sure to visit the main Bing blog for more information.

In the coming weeks you’ll learn more about how we designed Bing to cut through internet clutter and deliver more relevant results to help people make better choices. In the meantime, visit http://www.decisionengine.com and follow Bing on Twitter (@Bing) for all the latest news.

My Twitter remains the same - @chrispendleton. I also set up a Facebook page for all you Bing Maps fans out there. My blog will also be moving soon and will be focusing on both Bing Maps and Bing Maps for Enterprise, so stay tuned for more information on that.

CP – Bing Maps Technical Evangelist….I need new business cards.

Microsoft Surface Globe pretty much puts the whole world in your hands (well, kind of!). It uses the Virtual Earth 3D engine to display a 3D version of the world. Using multi-touch, you can navigate to different regions, get local information, and “pin” your favorite locations. You can even “fly” around 3D models of buildings in some cities. The Microsoft Surface Globe was one of the apps Julie Larson-Green demoed at last year’s D: All Things Digital conference. To see the Microsoft Surface Globe app in action – take a look at this video.

Okay, so what does the Microsoft Surface Globe application do? It’s a WPF application that integrates the Microsoft Virtual Earth 3D map control with the Surface multi-touch APIs. It also goes full screen exclusive for a true gaming affect. You can annotate the map with your own information and use several different 3D pushpin icons available with the application. The navigation bar allows you to view the Earth orthographically or tilt it for a more oblique view. Also, built into the application is the ability to not only add your own pins, but export them (to a spreadsheet for example) so they can then be uploaded into Live Maps via the Collections Editor. To add a pushpin in Microsoft Surface Globe, simply click the giant pushpin icon in the navigation bar, select the icon you want, then place the pin and add optional text information to it. You can also disable the pins all at once if you want a more clear view of the map experience. The Road map style is also included, so you can see the vector roads as well, although Aerial is the default. The other built-in feature is the ability to search through Collections stored in Live Maps. Click the Collections link on the flip side of the Surface Globe navigation (there’s a small arrow to flip the menu to more options) and you’ll see a card come up in which you can enter things such as “Bars in San Diego, CA.” Doing so will access the Virtual Earth API to search through relevant, location-based Collection items that users from around the world have uploaded into Live Maps.

Now, this being a “touch pack” you should expect to be able to do all of this with a touch screen PC running Windows 7. Now, that being said the application will run with just a mouse and I even plugged in my X-Box controller and that worked the same as it does today, but for those of you who are lucky enough to get a touch screen PC, you can use the following “tip card” that comes with the application to navigate the map. Basically, the Surface team wrapped their gestures APIs to reflect panning, zooming, rotating and tilting the Virtual Earth 3D control.

Greatness. You can read more about the Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 on the Windows Team Blog.

CP

Another month of web casts done. This month we focused on business intelligence applications using Microsoft Virtual Earth across the enterprise. The first web cast had tons of information thrown at you about the different scenarios for which you would need different BI applications across different verticals within the enterprise. In the second web cast, we focused on more architecture and the actual technologies behind bringing the applications to life. If you missed either of the web casts for May, you can watch them on demand via the Momentum web site.

• Using Virtual Earth Across the Enterprise (Level 100) - in-depth exploration of how to use the Virtual Earth platform as a data visualization tool in line-of-business solutions throughout your organization. From supply chain management and emergency response to market analysis, e-commerce, and more, Virtual Earth helps provide easier, more intuitive access to data in solutions that are key to an organization’s success.
• Developers Can Build Solutions Across the Enterprise with Virtual Earth (Level 200) - a technical exploration of how the Virtual Earth platform can be used across the enterprise as a data visualization tool, integrating with Microsoft technologies, such as SQL Server, Microsoft Dynamics, and SharePoint, and partner components.

There’s a web cast on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 @ 11:30 AM PDT hosted by IS Consulting (creators of Map Dot Net) titled, “Virtual Earth for Economic Development in Government.” Here’s the brief, Join the Virtual Earth team, ISC, and the Economic Development Council of Tallahassee/Leon County to learn how geospatial visualization and analysis can support economic development. This webcast will introduce the technologies behind a new, user-friendly Web site that is helping Tallahassee and surrounding areas drive interest in the region and promote commercial growth. For more information, check out the Virtual Earth for Government blog.

For updates on future web casts or to watch any of the previously recorded web cast, visit our events page on the Virtual Earth Marketing site.

CP

Just a little something fun for your hump day.

CP

Here’s official communication that went to our customers and developers today:

Get Virtual Earth Content Faster through the New Content Delivery Network

Today, Microsoft® is pleased to introduce a new performance improvement for the Virtual Earth platform – the Content Delivery Network (CDN).

Microsoft CDN is a key pillar of the Microsoft cloud computing strategy and is one of the primary investments the Virtual Earth team is making to increase overall platform performance.

CDN is composed of multiple geo-distributed data centers (throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia) that allow Virtual Earth to host content closer to customers and end users.

As a result of CDN, delivery speeds of Virtual Earth content have been improved up to 82 percent for both the Virtual Earth AJAX Map Control and Virtual Earth Silverlight Map Control. This first release is part of an on-going program that will expand the network later this year.

To begin utilizing CDN, you will need to make an opt-in, non-breaking change to your AJAX map control code; no action is required for Silverlight Map Control users, as CDN logic is already built-in. Given the significant performance benefits of CDN, it will be the preferred method of accessing Virtual Earth content.

For details on implementing CDN for the Virtual Earth AJAX Map Control, please visit the associated documentation on MSDN.

A simple changing of the Virtual Earth .ashx pointer and you’re on your way. The CDN will continue to grow over time - we have some big plans rolling out over the next year. So, with the last release of the AJAX control and the 3D control, plus the roll out of the Silverlight Map Control and now we’re coming online with ECN/CDN I’m guessing whatever performance issues certain people have complained about in the past and decided to invest elsewhere have all but gone away. We welcome you back when you’re ready.

CP

Today’s to do list (for you):

• Book a ticket to Australia
• Register for REMIX Australia
• Construct your agenda to include my session
• Be there

CP

For those of you who want it, here’s the full press release.

CP

There are currently two versions of the game UMapper game:

1. States
2. Countries and Capitals

However, if you don’t like the current versions of the games, well, make your own! UMapper is providing the ability to make your own version of the game. Also, you can see what games other people have made as a part of the community. I like the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, because, well, there are only 7. I even made my own little game so you can see what conferences I’ll be at and when…aptly named, Where is CP, When? Play my game, then go make your own.

CP

Visual Fusion is an enterprise mashup platform for creating interactive, visual applications utilizing the power of SharePoint. Integrate enterprise information, Web services, and unstructured workgroup files into a single interactive picture, and present them in the context of location, time, or other visualization. Communicate the big picture immediately, and allow users to discover, contribute, collaborate, and act. Test drive Visual Fusion 4.0 as seen above.

Now, what you see above is a fairly robust demonstration of the visualization capabilities provided by Visual Fusion 4.0. The demonstration integrates all kinds of great data such as US County Demographics, US Market Population (Bars and Radius), Population by County, and Public RSS feeds such as Swine Flu cases and National Parks. You can also search Wikipedia and map out information from there. They’ve even integrated some Web Mapping Services (WMS) such as US Weather Radar and NASA Elevation Models.

What else? Geocoding. Weather overlays. Silverlight UX. Road, Aerial, Hybrid map styles. New, proprietary map styles – Low Light and Blue Print. Bathymetry. Simple SharePoint dashboard interface. Now, this is jam-packed with data – a shorter list is what they don’t have; but, where Visual Fusion is most powerful is visualizing YOUR data. This experience will change your perspective on how critical maps have become to visualizing your asset, financial, emergency, etc. etc. information.

I’ll be talking about this in detail during my “Visualizing Data Across the Enterprise with Virtual Earth” web cast which starts here shortly (if you missed it a recording will be made available online later this week). Next week, well do the technical deep dive in “Developers Can Boost Business Across the Enterprise”

Nicely done, IDV Solutions. You’ve made my day.

CP