21Terabytes Virtual Earth Ortho Imagery Update

The March 2009 update introduced to Virtual Earth is less than half the size of that in February, but still, the coverage is nothing short of impressive. According to Chris Pendleton, Virtual Earth Tech Evangelist Microsoft, the March 2009 Virtual Earth update is focused exclusively on making a vast volume of ortho imagery available in the Redmond company's mapping, location and search platform. No less than 21 Terabytes (TB) of new ortho imagery can now be accessed through Virtual Earth, covering various locations around the world, some of which you are bound to have never heard of.

“Another huge addition to the digitization of our planet just hit the web last night – 21TB - all ortho imagery launched into Microsoft Virtual Earth, powering Live Search Maps (and other Live Search properties). Now, this one isn’t huge in terms of terabytes, oh no. This is huge in terms of square kilometers of the world. This should take you some time to get through. And, FWIW, there are a few countries on the list that I’m wondering if you’d ever heard of – Seychelles or Comoros anyone? Their tourism boards need to step it up,” Pendleton stated.

New content is available for cities in Albania, Australia, Bahamas, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, China, Comoros, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominican Republic, Eritrea, Estonia, France, Gabon, Great Britain, Greece, Guinea-Bissau, Hungary, India, Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Liberia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Namibia, Norway, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Djibouti, Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Seychelles, Tanzania, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, Western Sahara, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Back in February 2009 Microsoft integrated no less than 55 TB of new content into Virtual Earth. Last month's refresh however was not limited to imagery alone, but also included map data, the company informed.