Microsoft Windows Live has become a very useful tool with new features added to it. The online local search and mapping service with which users can find maps, directions and local search, has added new functionalities as real-time traffic flow and incident reporting, new social networking tools, and productivity enhancements from extending the Windows Live Local experience into Microsoft Office Outlook and Windows Live Messenger.
The third release of WLL reflects some nice improvements, including to the basic maps functionality, which had been lagging MapQuest, Google and Yahoo!
“This release is important, as it represents the first time that people can easily capture their rich local knowledge and share it with all Windows Live Local users and the Internet as a whole,” said Stephen Lawler, general manager of the Virtual Earth™ business unit at Microsoft. “Our geographic expansion and integration with popular communication tools like Microsoft Outlook and Windows Live Messenger also enable us to bring the power of Windows Live Local to many more people than we do today.”
The new traffic feature is provided chiefly with a partnership with Traffic.com has added real-time traffic flow and incident reporting provided. The functionality will be available in the U.S. release.
Social networking functionality allows customers to create lists of favorite landmarks and locations, attach personal photos and save them to a Scratchpad. Collections can be saved, recalled later, “permalinked,” and shared with friends and community in e-mail or through their MSN Spaces blog.
Sharing maps and location information from within Windows Live Messenger chats is easier. Users begin a sharing session from the Actions menu. People sharing a chat session can see and interact with the same Windows Live Local map and benefit from a shared mapping and local search experience.
Microsoft has also released Virtual Earth map control, enabling developers to bring the same great mapping, imagery and local search capabilities into their business applications and “mashups”.
Also being released today is Windows Live Local Add-in for Microsoft Office Outlook. This add-in introduces Windows Live Local mapping capabilities to the Outlook Calendar, enabling Outlook users to find and print maps and directions to meeting locations from within Outlook.
|
