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Faces In The News
Microsoft Chairman Gates Rolls Out Mapping Service
Chris Noon, 05.24.05, 10:42 AM ET
NEW YORK - Doers and doings in business, entertainment and technology:
Wide angle: The legions of self-appointed private dicks who run Internet searches on ex-girlfriends and rival businesses may now have the edge on their next-door neighbor. Late Monday, Microsoft
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) previewed a geo-mapping service featuring aerial photos and satellite images that hopes to steal users away from Google's
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) own localized online search. (see: "The Prying Game"). MSN Virtual Earth will offer actual peeps of shops rather than just the rooftop views displayed from satellite images. Chairman Bill Gates will want his satellite maps to pose a threat to Time Warner's
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) Mapquest, which has long boasted the most popular Web site for finding directions. And the Amazon.com
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) A9 search engine, introduced this year, featured an index containing 20 million photographs of building exteriors in ten major U.S. cities. Microsoft's service will be available this summer, but it won't include the aerial pictures right away. Stephen Lawler, general manager of Microsoft's MapPoint business, was quoted in The Associated Press as saying: "This is a game-changing kind of imagery for the Internet and for this kind of search experience we're trying to create." The deal with Pictometry International, which provides photos that look down on buildings from a 45-degree angle, will offer images in around 15 major U.S. cities.
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