Microsoft has taken the wraps of Virtual Earth 3D, an update to its online mapping service which now offers three-dimensional views and models of the real world. Further, Microsoft has integrated mapping options into its Live Search.
“The release of Virtual Earth 3D is a significant step toward creating a truly new dimension in search not only in the look and feel of the experience but in the way consumers and advertisers can be involved,” said Steve Berkowitz, senior VP of Microsoft’s Online Services Group. “Local search is one of the fastest-growing categories online today, and adding features like 3-D will only help move the category further ahead and help Windows Live attract more customers and advertisers.”
When visitors click the “Maps” tab on Live Search results pages, they can see their search results in a map context which offers two-dimensional views or three-dimensional models using Virtual Earth 3D; Virtual Earth 3D compiles photorealistic 3D models with photographic images of cities and terrain to present results with “engineering level” accuracy.
Three-dimensional models are initially available for 15 U.S. cities, including San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Detroit, Phoenix, Houston, Baltimore, Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, and Fort Worth. Microsoft plans to add additional cities; terrain 3D imagery is available around the globe. Select major U.S. cities also have real-time traffic information as well as personal and business directory listings.
And there’s another way Virtual Earth 3D will resemble the real world: ads everywhere. Microsoft will be offering “virtual billboards” in the 3D view. We wonder if soon we will also be treated to litter, panhandlers, bad traffic, and inclement weather?
(Note: Virtual Earth 3D’s maps only work with Internet Explorer, so we’re afraid this one is Windows-only, kids.)
In 1950, Alan Turing asked whether machines can think. Rather than argue over definitions, he turned the question into a party game, where an interrogator trades typed messages with hidden players and tries to work out who is who. Since then, chatbots have gotten so good that they have already fooled humans in modern versions of the test.
So, four researchers from Paris Cité University asked the obvious follow-up question in a new study published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports: can AI at least catch its own kind?
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.