Today Microsoft released an update to their Virtual Earth software. It adds several 3D US cities, with possibly 100 from around the world by the end of next summer.

I installed the update, and went traveling straight to Las Vegas. I was surprised at how good the 3D actually was. The textures are certainly high enough of a resolution to appear rather convincing. I noticed that the details did take a while to come to life in my browser. I guess there is a fair bit of data that was being streamed as I moved around.

Microsoft may also add an interesting revenue stream with this. There is talk of clickable billboards, which I can see in the future being lined with a colorful banner. Hopefully no Viagra adds, I’ve seen enough of those in my inbox. But, certainly there is a possibility of relevant advertising, based on the latest in gathered data. At this point, I have not seen any banners.

The update, available here, involved a slightly larger than 5MB download. It will run in Internet Explorer 6 or 7.

Source: TechCrunch