For everyone who wants to get the most out of Windows Live: The Windows Live Essentials and Services Book.

This book by MVP Brad Jones and Marcus Schmidt is a full-color, step-by-step guide for using Microsoft's new Windows Live Essentials series of free applications.

Step-by-step instructions show you how to use not only these applications, but also associated Windows Live on-line services. As an example, you'll learn just how easy it is to create panoramic pictures in seconds or how to create movies from pictures in just a few minutes. Then you'll get the inside scoop on how to communicate and share using Messenger, SkyDrive, Spaces, and Groups.

With this book, you'll quickly be on your way to accessing these useful applications in an effort to making your life easier.

• Learn how to get Live Essentials Applications free and install them on your computer
• Chat with Live Messenger, keep in touch with Live Mail, and set up and create your own blog with Live Writer
• Get creative with Photo Gallery and Movie Maker, which let you manage and enhance your photos and turn them into movies
• Socialize with the help of Live Spaces
• Organize appointments and special days with Live Calendar
• Use SkyDrive to store files and documents online for easy access from anywhere
• Explore additional apps and services such as Live Contacts, Live Groups, Bing Maps, Bing Search, and more

You can purchase the book at amazon.com.

Bing Maps China has updated their site with tons of new data and some new features:

• Yellow Pages – Over 8 million yellow page listings are now searching from Bing Maps China.
• Business Photos – Hundreds of thousands of business front photos are now available as a part of our YP listings results.
• Transit – Bing Maps China has had transit information for a while now; however, the site now hosts hundreds of transit lines around China
• Road Data Refresh – Updated the entire country with new road network data inclusive of over 4 million road segments
• Traffic – Higher fidelity, wider coverage traffic flow information for more roads around the country
• Performance Enhancements – Route and transit calculation times cut by over 50%
• Signposts (Directions) – visual improvements for driving directions
• Signposts (Highway Exits) - visual improvements for highway exit signs
• Signposts (Border Crossing) - visual improvements for border crossing signs

The Bing Maps China API SDK has also been updated.

One sure fire way to get a new feature noticed is to attach it to TechCrunch, and indeed TC noticed a new Bing feature yesterday that appears on Bing search results for “TechCrunch”:

The “Latest posts” feature only appears for certain websites (TechCrunch, New York Times, etc), and appears to be different than the “Top Headlines” feature that shows not the latest headlines, but perhaps the most popular ones?

In the screenshot above you can see that a search on “New York Times” shows both lists, with the “latest posts” showing results from minutes or hours ago, and “Top headlines” showing results filtered by something other than time.

We don’t have “Latest posts” showing up on a search for “LiveSide” (hey!, what’s up with that?) and it seems to be kind of hit or miss as to who has the new feature at this point, but it seems like it could be quite useful.  We’ll keep an eye on it.