December 2007 - LiveSide - News blog

Didn't get the digital camera you wanted for Christmas? Then maybe you should consider buying yourself one of these, an UltraCamX Large Format Digital Aerial Camera. Producing images with a 216 megapixel resolution, these cameras are used to take the high-resolution imagery used within VirtualEarth/Live Maps. A word of warning though, Microsoft's press release in Nov 2007 shows that only 3 UltraCamX systems have been purchased in North America since they went on sale in May 2006. Better start saving for next Christmas then. Updated: The VE for Government team blog says that more have been sold in the US (how many not specified), and gives a worldwide sales to date figure of 41.

UltraCamX data sheet

Of course you'll also need to buy a "low cost" data unit as well to keep the images taken, which with storage of 1.7TB will apparently be enough for approximately 4700 images. With a camera like this, its easy to see why the monthly Virtual Earth imagery additions consist of TB's of data. December saw 36TB added, including 44 new cities that feature UltraCamX imagery. Unfortunately most of the new additions are within the USA, however Tokyo was lucky enough to be part of the update. The images are so good that at full zoom you can even see the lines dividing the running tracks at the athletics stadium - check it out.

Long has picked up on Microsoft's latest advertising strategy, YouTube. Several videos promoting the benefits of using Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Windows Live have been uploaded in the past week, unfortunately it seems as though nearly all of the points being marketed don't actually relate to Vista. Ooops. Lets hope the ad guys who win the $300m Microsoft advertising contact we talked about last month don't make such a basic mistake.

This week has also seen Microsoft running advertisements on Facebook promoting Windows Live and the benefits of using a connected set of services. Alas four small meaningless icons make it somewhat difficult to work this out, so probably best to stick to YouTube even if the comments aren't too flattering.

Things at LiveSide have been a little quiet lately, as we enjoy the holiday season, and frankly enjoy a little break as Windows Live news has slowed until the new year.  News, and our snooping around it, will pick up soon, but for now we're enjoying the little break.

Of course we still keep one eye on the blogs, just to make sure we don't miss anything, and sure enough something caught our eye today: over at Inside Microsoft, this headline popped out of our newsreader:  "Live Messenger Now Integrating with Everybody (Dec 27)".  Say whaaa???  Following the link to Mashable, and "Google Talk and Windows Live Messenger 9 Get Friendly (Dec 23)", we really started to think we missed something, especially when the post included this line:

Apparently Microsoft has succeeded in getting Live Messenger 9 (currently in private testing) to communicate with Google Talk, and they are working on integration with AIM and ICQ also.

Now because we're involved in the beta, we can't tell you what is included in the Windows Live Messenger 9 beta, but we can tell you that GTalk integration with the current beta is news to us.  Time to follow some more links, this time from Mashable to something called DoctorTomorrow Online, and "Google Talk in Windows Messenger 9! (Dec 22)", which, along with let's say taking some liberties with the facts, links to - oh looky there, LiveSide!  Except of course its the October 31st article on some news from a Georgia Tech presentation, where we reported, in part:

Internal builds are already at WLM 9 and includes many of the API components. They have a team working on multi-person audio/video chat for WLM that may or may not be in 9, but should be in by 10. They are also trying to work out a way for WLM users to chat with AIM/GTalk/ICQ users like the way Yahoo! works now, and they have an internal version that works with GTalk already (but very basic).

Nothing in our report says anything about GTalk, etc. interoperability in Windows Live Messenger 9, sorry to say.  Of course we wish it did, but when it does, you'll read about it here first ;)  Note here that while getting a basic version of interop running, and making all the political and business decisions that would make it happen, are two entirely different things.  Not saying that it won't happen, just that there's a big difference between a basic internal version working and an interop announcement between any of the major players with messenger clients.

We certainly don't mean to pick on any of our fellow bloggers in following this (non) news story, but just want to point out how these kinds of stories seem to take on a life of their own, and how important it is to follow the links to the source.

So for now we'll go back to resting up for what promises to be an interesting new year.

Received a nice email today from Steven Lees, a member of the CSA Concept Development Team at Microsoft, announcing that Microsoft has placed FeedSync under the Open Specifications Promise.  According to Lees from his email:

"As I think I mentioned at Mix n Mash, we’re very interested in having many independent implementations of FeedSync. The spec itself is under a Creative Commons license, and we’ve always said that we want people to have royalty-free use of the spec as well. Because I’ve heard some general questions from people about spec licensing, and because we’ve filed patents on technology innovations related to FeedSync, we wanted to make the royalty free message even more clear, so we’ve placed the FeedSync spec under the Microsoft Open Specification Promise."

Basically, the Open Specifications Promise is an even more open specification than Creative Commons.  From the Microsoft.com page:

The Open Specification Promise is a simple and clear way to assure that the broadest audience of developers and customers working with commercial or open source software can implement specifications through a simplified method of sharing of technical assets, while recognizing the legitimacy of intellectual property.

...

Q: Why did Microsoft take this approach?

A: It was a simple, clear way, after looking at many different licensing approaches, to reassure a broad audience of developers and customers that the specification(s) could be used for free, easily, now and forever.

Q: How does the Open Specification Promise work? Do I have to do anything in order to get the benefit of this OSP?

A: No one needs to sign anything or even reference anything. Anyone is free to implement the specification(s), as they wish and do not need to make any mention of or reference to Microsoft. Anyone can use or implement these specification(s) with their technology, code, solution, etc. You must agree to the terms in order to benefit from the promise; however, you do not need to sign a license agreement, or otherwise communicate your agreement to Microsoft.

You can read more about FeedSync, and the Open Specifications Promise, at these locations:

FeedSync news blog http://blogs.msdn.com/feedsync

Steven Lees' MSDN blog http://blogs.msdn.com/stevenlees

FeedSync site http://feedsync.org

Open Specifications Promise Page at Microsoft.com  http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx

I came home from work today to find multiple notifications from readers that LiveSide (and other sites) had been setting off Anti-Virus detectors, and a link to an article on ZDNet: Antivirus firm: Google text ad Trojan detected.  According to the article:

The Trojan redirects queries meant to be sent to Google servers to a rogue server, which displays ads from a third party instead of ads from Google, BitDefender said in a statement.

Google said on Wednesday: "We have cancelled customer accounts that display ads redirecting users to malicious sites or that advertise a product violating our software principles."

The issue seems to be resolved, so we will not be making any immediate changes in regards to running Google Adsense ads at this time.  However please report any problems immediately to feedback*at*liveside*dot*net, and we will take action if necessary.

We apologize for any ill effects this caused anyone.  From what we understand, Windows Live OneCare acted appropriately to catch the virus, which was good news under the circumstances.  We strongly recommend that if you are not using an Anti-Virus product, you stop what you are doing and install one now.

Earlier today Microsoft made available the source code for tafiti.com as part of the Windows Live Quickapps series. For those of you interested in the quickapps you should definitely subscribe to the Windows Live Alerts for instant notification of any updates.

For those developers amongst you, Colin has reviewed the tafiti quickapp in more detail. Its well worth a read, especially if you haven't played with any of the quickapps yet.

As a Christmas bonus, we've got 3 copies of Microsoft Expression Studio to give away. Drop a comment below saying why you'd like one and if you win, we'll mail it out to you. Thanks to the guys at Microsoft UK and get.live.com for these.

Live Search and Live Search Maps continue to improve their offerings, with the latest being an update to m.live.com, for mobile search.  After downloading a small installer, maps on your mobile browser are made interactive, with easy zooming and panning.  I just tried it out on my T-Mobile Shadow, very nice.  According to the Live Maps/ Virtual Earth blog, other improvements include:

• 1-click directions for all businesses and street addresses in U.S.
• Additional details for U.S. businesses, including neighborhood, business category, cuisine (restaurants) and hours of operation
• Photos and reviews for U.S. businesses
• Improved movie show times Instant Answers (we now show critics rating)
• Added interactivity to all maps (clicking on maps now zooms in/out to predefined levels, or advanced to the next waypoint for routing maps)
• Traffic & map Instant Answers
• Mobile search for the China market. Scopes offered are local (no maps, but coming soon), web, images, news and Spaces.

Just in from our friends at Windows Live Chronicles, traffic info has been added for 3 Canadian cities: Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal - so now Phunky can detour around that black line near downtown.

Our service provider, 1and1.com, has notified us that we will be down for a few hours this coming Sunday evening/Monday morning:

In preparation for moving your server to the new, state-of-the-art
1&1 Data Center, we will need to briefly shut down your server while
technicians perform an internal hardware realignment.
This realignment will be performed overnight on December 17, 2007
between the hours of 12:00 am and 7:00 am EST. Your server
will not be accessible during this time.

Hopefully this will not take long and we will be back up and running soon.  Here's a little information on the new Data Center: http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/DataCenter.

Well it took a few days, and I actually got an email saying it would be a few more, and hey watch this video while you're waiting, but then an invite was waiting for me in another account this evening.  I had already installed the Office Live Workspaces plug-in to Office 2007, so signing up was a simple matter of logging in via the plug-in and signing up for Office Live, which only took a few clicks.  After that, preparing the workspace only took less than a minute, and I was in:

(click on the pictures for larger views)

I added a file from the web interface, which was seamless and quick, but then after logging out, opening Office Live Workspaces from within Word took quite a while, I counted 12 seconds before I saw a file list:

Of course this is still extremely early in the beta, with less than a full complement of server allocation, so performance should get better.

Within Office Live Workspaces, you can work with either documents, sharing them using the Microsoft SharedView beta, or with workspaces.  Clicking on New Workspace gives you quite a list (which I pasted together for this illustration):

As you can see, creating a new workspace generates a series of documents, ready to be customized for whatever particular project you have in mind.

Aside from some fairly serious performance issues, notably lacking in this early release is a link from within Word to open the web interface for Office Live Workspaces.  you can open a document, but don't seem to be able to navigate to the website from within Office, which seems almost a necessary feature.  In fact, getting to the Workspace at all seems to be a little tricky - it's at http://workspace.office.live.com/, or http://home.officelive.com and then clicking on Workspaces down on the lower left.  This was not as intuitive as it could be, especially with no quick link from within the Office apps.

We've just taken a quick look around, and will have more on Office Live Workspaces as we become more familiar with it.  At first glance, the web interface is much more polished than the interaction between Office on the desktop and Office Live Workspaces, but it is a beta, after all.

Some interesting information from Vincent Tao, Senior Director of Virtual Earth and Live Local Search at Microsoft, from an interview by Brady Forrest at O'Reilly Radar.  While maps.live.com is fully available in China, the ditu.live.com version does not presently include any imagery, nor does it contain readily available latitude and longitude information, in accordance with the quite strict regulations from the Chinese government.  From the interview:

What's coming in the future? Will there be an API? Will there be aerial or satellite imagery? Why is there satellite imagery of China in the US version and not in the Chinese version?
[VT] We have our roadmap for China VE services both in B2C and B2B. Our VE API will be available for enterprise and mashup users in a not too distant future. We are looking into the image solutions. So far there are some issues, not technical, about on-line image publishing in China. 

Was the data allowed to leave China? What other restrictions were placed on the data and its use?
[VT] The map data is not allowed to leave the border. Some other countries also have the same regulations (Korea for example). In China, maps can only be provided by the licensed map data providers. Also the on-line publishing maps need to go through a ‘encryption’ process whereby map coordinates are transformed to an unknown coordinate system (not in Lat/Long). This is mainly for the national security reason as far as I know.

What are the issues surrounding showing images? Why would they be more concerned about their own population seeing them? Is http://maps.live.com blocked in China?
[VT] The same reason as above. In general, mapping is a highly regulated area in China and so on-line mapping services. Given the incredible opportunity in China commercial mapping market and the coming Olympic event, the China mapping agency is actively developing and examining their data policy and regulations. I was using maps.live.com when I was travelling China. Our site is running just fine.

Live Search Maps announced via their blog today that a new Chinese version is now available, at www.ditu.live.com (ditu (地图) means maps in Chinese, according to our friend PicturePan2, who was of course already all over this news and has posted on LiveSino.net).  From the Virtual Earth/Live Maps blog:

Congratulations to the Virtual Earth team in China for releasing version one of Live Search Maps for China. If you read Chinese you can try it out at http://ditu.live.com. The application was built in China with a focus on getting the features most relevant to our Chinese customers out first. Business search, Collections, and public transit features were emphasized, covering over 100 cities with 7 million business listings.

While it is commendable that the focus is on relevant features for Chinese customers, it is also interesting that in this Chinese version, at least at this point, there are no aerial maps at all, and as a matter of fact the whole top leg of the navigation control is missing.  However, according to PicturePan2, there is more road information in the ditu.com version than the maps.live.com version.

(click on the picture to go to the map)

(click on the picture to go to the map)

This is where our friend PicturePan2 lives, by the way:

Be sure and say Hi next time you're in Shanghai :)

Microsoft today announced that it had acquired MultiMap, "one of the United Kingdom’s top 100 technology companies and one of the leading online mapping services in the world."

The acquisition gives Microsoft a powerful new location and mapping technology to complement existing offerings such as Virtual Earth, Live Search, Windows Live services, MSN and the aQuantive advertising platform, with future integration potential for a range of other Microsoft products and platforms. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“The addition of Multimap enhances Microsoft’s position as a leading provider of mapping and location platform services,” said Sharon Baylay, general manager of the Online Services Group at Microsoft. “This acquisition will play a significant role in the future growth of our search business and presents a huge opportunity to expand our platform business beyond the U.K. and globally. We are thrilled to welcome Multimap onboard.”

For me, this is quite a surprising move as Microsoft has already established its own mapping technology with Virtual Earth, so it will be interesting to see just how this acquisition pans outs and what will actually come out of it for the end user.

SL

Phil Holden points out that a new version of Windows Live Messenger is available for almost all  phones, by accessing MSN Mobile, for both WAP 1.x and WAP 2.x phones.  If you've use MSN Mobile on your phone you should be good to go, if not, go to http://mobile.msn.com, and fill out the info to have a text message sent to your phone to allow you to navigate to  msn mobile, (or just browse to mobile.msn.com on your phone):

If you have a Windows Mobile phone, you'll want to use Windows Live for Mobile, or alternately, Windows Live for Nokia, but if not, the new update offers a lot of features for enabled phones:

• Rich emoticons support
• The ability to view and manage up to five active conversations
• Customers can change the display names, status etc
• Full access to your Live Contacts
• Search your contacts, hide offline contacts etc

(Update: edited to correct my noob confusion about how this works)

Microsoft announced today that it is rolling out entry into the beta of Office Live Workspaces, a new service that will allow document storage in the cloud from within Office applications.  You can sign up for the beta, and then download and install a plug-in to Office to be able to access a menu to be able to open and save Office documents to cloud based storage.

While access has not appeared for me here yet, US based customers who signed up for the beta should be getting accepted in to the program shortly, we'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, David Berlind at ZDNet has posted a video walkthrough with Kirk Gregerson, who we interviewed in October.