Version 6.1 of Microsoft Virtual Earth will be released on the 10th of April, and brings with it some new features to the platform. We are now using Virtual Earth exclusively in all of our mapping applications, and releases like this further validate our decision to standardize on the platform.
Here’s a quick list of some of the new features and enhancements:
- “Enhanced experiences with bird’s eye view in 3D, and new bird’s eye hybrid view…”
- Reverse geocoding for U.S. users.
- Walking directions for North America and European Union users.
- Traffic-based driving directions.
- New cross-browser support.
- Improved printing support for maps.
I’m especially excited to hear about the reverse geocoding, walking directions, cross-browser support, and improved print support for maps. All of these enhancements meet needs that we’ve been specifically looking for.
And one other thing that Microsoft is doing right with Virtual Earth: “Version 6.1 will run in parallel with Version 6.0 and will also be backwards compatible with Version 6.0. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: It seems that the hump we had to get over when migrating from V4 to V5 of the API wasn’t all for naught. That’s a good thing!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
What do you mean by “New cross-browser support”? That it runs on Mac versions of Firefox or Safari?
Are there any MS blog posts on these new features?
@Stefan
The source that I got this information from did not go into any details about Virtual Earth’s cross-browser support, but I’m sure more info will be coming out from Microsoft soon.
@Adam Hill
I haven’t seen any publicly-available Microsoft posts about these new features, but expect that more info will be coming out from them shortly.