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Microsoft releases Virtual Earth Beta

By Justin Mann

On November 7, 2006, 11:01 AM

One of Microsoft's lesser-known stabs at Google has been “Virtual Earth”. Yesterday, Microsoft launched the publically available beta version of the world-touring software, which is quite a marvel to look at. While there is a web portion of this software, in order to get the high-quality 3D views you need to download and install the beta, which requires Windows XP. Google earth is much more OS-friendly, and has had much more time to mature. But if you are interested in trying out Virtual Earth, the images are of outstanding quality and it's a free download. You'll need IE6 or IE7 to snag it. You can read Microsoft's official press release at their site.

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  1. November 8, 2006 3:48 AM
    hagane7 said:
    In my personal point of views, Microsoft is greedy. It ventures into everything - mp3 players, game console, computer OS, internet, etc. While this competition is good, but I just want Microsoft to focus on their OS business and not to diversify into many different products lines.I just hate to see Microsoft is releasing Vista while there are many things to be corrected and improved in XP. And now they are delaying SP3 for XP until 2008. I this trend continue, believe me, the stable Vista will only come at least 10 years later.I hope Microsoft can come with original ideas - not a copycat version.
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