I believe that the only way you can know which way to go is to look as forward as you can.

Monday, March 06, 2006

Online map services. Virtual Earth Local Preview

I’ve tasted recently a pretty pretty map navigation. Well, it is only a preview for two cities… but since I live close to one of them… I can totally enjoy it.
Long story short… I shall show what you can obtain with some online maps services inserting the same address: 100 Pine ST, Seattle WA 98101.
I have chosen this place as I think the view towards the “Public market” is simply charming: the water, the sloped street, the market… all so cute.

First, some years ago… I was into yahoo maps.
Classic, old fashioned, sweaty navigation.



Then it was Google Maps. Total revolution. Sattelite/hybrid image, and could drag the map with the mouse… and all the local search results…yammy.



I was also impressed by amazon's A9 maps. I’ve found the both street sides pictures as an useful thing. If you need to get to totally unfamiliar place, it can prove more useful then the satellite image.



Then, then I saw birds eye with two levels of zoom on local.live.com.
I found very pleasant to rotate around the target from nord to south and from east to west.



It is cool to be a bird but I still was dreaming to see things also just like walking or driving along the street. And here it is:



The chance to walk / drive on the streets of Seattle with preview.local.live.com.

Quite amazing… isn’t it? Well, what next? I know what I want.
I want multi touch interaction on our hardware to use it for map navigation. It might take some years but I am patient… though eager. :)

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not fare ... "conflict de interese" :)

Dado