Online Maps Logjam Worsens as Windows Live Adds Traffic Info
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Written By Reprise Media | May 24, 2006 | Share This
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Well, the logjam for usability, anyway. While market champ MapQuest is more or less standing pat on its simple, driving-directions-thank-you-very-much interface, the rest of the field is furiously taking turns adding bells and whistles. Windows Live officially rolled out several new features today, headlined by live traffic congestion monitoring for “many major cities” in the US.
Via partnership with traffic.com, Windows Live joins Yahoo! as the only major map players to offer a real-time traffic spy. The Live Local product illustrates the speed of traffic flow with color coded overlays on the roads (green is 45 MPH and above, yellow 25-45, red…red’s never good) and marks ‘incidents’ with triangular map icons, also color coded for severity. A filter allows you to show or hide construction delays, as well.
Live Local also made it easy for people signed in with Windows Live accounts to mark and save their favorite map locations with pushpins, which can be organized into ‘collections’ and shared over email. For instance, a long-distance commuter could mark their favorite detour routes for the morning rush hour, annotate with explanations, then share their secrets with trusted relatives in town for the week (sorry, we got traffic on the brain).
Chris at LiveSide says that aerial imagery for selected areas in the UK is also part of the Live Local update, although he warns that some of the photographs are over two years old (”If you’re planning to buy a house, don’t rely on it to scope out the area!”). Gary Price, meanwhile, is taking the opportunity to plug Ask.com’s own global sky views and street maps, which are out in parts Europe and Australia in addition to the US.
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