If you search Images for major cities or landmarks on Live Search, you will now be able to see the results on a Virtual Earth Map. If available, like for the Space Needle, you will get a Bird’s Eye image:

As you can see on the above image you can also hover over any of the images for more information about that specific image, click on it and it will open the original image/site in a frame on the right. If you don’t see a Virtual Earth Map in the results of your search for a City, click on “Show Map”. You will then see the images that are geospatially annotated (or shall we say geo tagged/geotagged?) on a VE Overview Map.

Pretty, no? Don’t want to see a map there? Noticed how “Show Map” changed into “Hide Map”? Just click on it and it’s gone. More about VE in Live Search images can be found on Chris Pendleton's Virtual Earth Blog.

Unfortunately, just like the background images on Live Search, this is only so if you have Live Search set to en-us. So for your comfort I’ve included that in the links in this article. I sure hope to see this integrated in Live Search Images in all other markets too, not just the US! We were promised the backgrounds for more markets too, but we’ve yet to see that happen as well.