Windows Live Feature Focus: Windows Live LocalAugust 26, 2006
Windows Live Feature Focus: Windows Live Local
I'll admit it. I've loved Windows Live Local ever since it was still MSN
Virtual Earth. As a "weather weenie" I loved the fact that MSNBC used the
Virtual Earth API to create a tracker for Hurricane Rita. There were different
colored and sized pushpins for each hurricane strength. Clicking on the pushpin
would bring up a small AJAX0-based panel with all the important details. Then,
on land, there were little traffic camera icons where clicking would display,
you guessed it, traffic camera shots. Ingenious, I thought.
Well, that was back in September. Back then, PDC 2005 had just occurred and
Windows Vista beta tester were digging through the recently released build 5219.
But also, people, such as me, had started playing with a new site called
start.com. Actually, start.com had been around since March 2005, but it had just
recently began gaining publicity (namely due to
this Channel9 video). Then, two months later, Live.com was released.
Since November, Live.com has now become the host domain for 21 (at latest count)
services, four of which just came out of beta: Windows Live Messenger and
Windows Live OneCare, client software, and Windows Live Custom Domains and
Windows Live Favorites, online. One of which, Windows Live QnA Beta, hasn't even
come out yet.
But we're not here today to talk about the Windows Live brand and its
development as a whole. No, today's service focus is solely on Windows Live
Local. But why, you ask, is there such a need for this? There are just so many
services in the Windows Live brand, that it seemed necessary to me to create a
sort of inside look, if you will. So there's the why. Now, this is the what.
Windows Live Local is an online mapping service. It's a phone book. It's a
high-definition air tour from 500 feet up. It's all of these and more combined.
This is the one thing to remember though. Windows Live Local is a mapping
service. Say it with me, mapping service. All of it's features should help
me to get directions easier and help find some things once I get there. So let's
try it.
In this example, let's assume that I'm a student at Penn State in State College,
PA. It's a long weekend and you want to go visit a friend who is at WVU in
Morgantown, WV. But you're terrible with directions and need to know how to get
there. So you go on and create pushpins at each city by right-clicking the map
and picking Add Pushpin from the resulting menu. Then you add each to your
directions list and click Get Directions. The result is
this. Basically, taking US-220 (which for a point, is I-99), down to I-68
and going west to Morgantown. That's the quickest route. But what about the
shortest?
To do that, just click Shortest and the Get Directions again. Windows Live Local
will grind for a minute and then change the route. This route now takes you off
of US-220 and onto US-22, then pretty much following US-119 down to Morgantown.
But, as anyone who has traveled that way knows, US-22 is always under
construction. So why doesn't it show up here? Other places show up as under
construction, why not here? Last time I checked, adding 3 lanes to a highway is
a pretty big project. But I digress.
So I choose to take the Quickest route (saving me a over half-an-hour in the
process, or so it says) and get there. What do I do now?
View results
I'm looking for places to eat, so I search for restaurants in Morgantown, WV. I
get those results. Then, I try another category. So we change it to Cafe. Those
results are exactly the same as restaurants! But click Cafes under Related
categories and volia, they change! Isn't that confusing?
Well, let's say we pick Urban Eats, number 8 on the restaurants list. After the
pushpin details fade in, you can click details and open up a new page. Here you
see all the data Windows Live Local has on this place. For possibly, more
results, click WebResults, where you'll find another inconsistency. If it's
Windows Live Local, shouldn't it use Windows Live Search, not MSN Search? Oh
well.
Finally, for this section, we'll touch on a new feature called Call for Free.
How does this work, you ask? Easy, click it and a translucent window will appear
asking you to enter your phone number. Supposedly, after you hit Call, your
phone will ring and you will be connected to whichever place you selected. I
offer no guarantees, seeing as I've never tried it but it sounds promising. Try
help for more information, it seems pretty good.
But, when you get done doing all the serious stuff, it's
time to play around with some of the other, more fun, features of Windows Live
Local. The first, and probably most fun feature is aerial photography. While
Google Local and Google Earth certainly were the first to make aerial photography
well known, Microsoft's own [hosted] TerraServer USA has been around for a
while. However, this data is notorious for being outdated (sometimes even back
in the 1970s when Windows didn't even exist!). Unfortunately, it was transferred
right over to Local.
The good news in this is that Windows Live Local has taken aerial photography to
the next level. Only, this level is 22,999 miles (or so) lower. It's called
birds eye imagery and was taken at low altitude with a high-definition camera(.
And while it's not available everywhere, it can be neat to hover over an area and
have it tell you "Bird's eye imagery is available for this area". Check out
Bird's Eye Tourist
for a bunch of great views using this mode. It's nifty stuff.
Another interesting feature of Windows Live Local is to pull up real traffic in
many cities across the US. Those construction issues earlier, if they were in an
area with traffic mode, would probably be fixed by enabling the construction
mode. It seems to work pretty well in my informal tests, although the accident
clearing times can be a little short.
Finally, there are many different ways to share information in Windows Live
Local. One way is to create a public collection where anyone can view them.
They're not for your families vacation pushpin collection but they can be useful
for other things. Also, you can share map info using Windows Live Messenger,
Email, MSN Spaces (though I haven't tested this), or by permalink.