Oops! Microsoft's Earth falls flat

Apparently Microsoft's much-touted Virtual Earth has Twin Towers in living grainy black and white.

"This week, poor Microsoft delivered a seminar in how not to launch a website. The release of their Virtual Earth site got the kind of word-of-mouth buzz that nobody wants: First, word went around that they were spiteful, but then they turned out to be merely incompetent.

"It's a funny story. Virtual Earth is Microsoft's attempt to answer Google Maps; both are giant on-line maps of the planet that you can pan about in detail, zooming in to see side streets and then out to inspect whole continents.

"(They are at virtualearth.microsoft.com and maps.google.com, respectively.)...

"Virtual Earth arrived on the Net this week with much ballyhoo -- but none of it was from Microsoft. The first many heard of it were headlines like 'Did Microsoft wipe Apple off the map?' Apparently, someone noticed that when you zoom the Microsoft Virtual Earth map to the location of rival Apple's headquarters in California, nothing but an industrial lot appears.

"... jarringly enough, there were the Twin Towers, standing tall in the face of reality. Virtual Earth, indeed ...

"Not only are the close-up images ancient, but they're a grainy black-and-white, and only of the United States. Google, by comparison, offers beautiful colour images of urban areas worldwide, all taken since 2002."
Source: Globe and Mail