Virtual Earth - 41.07 TB (Terabytes) Update and Photosynth

There are no small increments to the content associated with Microsoft Virtual Earth. In fact, because of the way that new and existing content have to blend together, the Redmond company prefers to deliver massive multi-terabytes updates to its mapping, location and search platform. It is the case with the latest update introduced to Virtual Earth, which is over the 40 TB milestone. The update brings new imagery to the service covering various areas worldwide.

“Another massive release of aerial photography for Virtual Earth - 41.07 TB worth,” revealed Chris Pendleton; Virtual Earth Tech Evangelist. According to Pendleton, the imagery update features Orthos and Obliques (Bird’s Eye) photographs for Spain, Japan, the United States, Australia, the UK, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, and Canada.

In addition, Virtual Earth users will now notice that there is a new feature at their disposal. Microsoft has integrated Photosynth into Virtual Earth. Back in July 2008, Pendleton announced that Photosynth was migrating away from the Live Labs technologies and under the umbrella of Virtual Earth. At that time, Microsoft offered little details on the matter, but the transition is now complete. Users will be able o access 3D environments composed out of 2D images of various locations around the world.

“Now, with the new Live Maps integration, you can explore the world in the very same way as you explored your own synthed photos,” explained Microsoft's Sarah Perez. “As you navigate in a map or zoom in or out in a particular location in Live Maps, you can choose to display pushpins for each Photosynth available in that area. You then just click the “launch Photosynth viewer” link to dive in and start exploring those synths.”

However, users will have to enable the Photosynth content in Virtual Earth. This can be done by searching for a specific location and select Explore mode (via Collections - Explore collections). This move is designed to enable all user generated content, including synths.