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Microsoft launches 'Virtual Earth' beta
July 25, 2005
The NGA wants to use the Virtual Earth technology "to provide geospatial support for humanitarian, peacekeeping and national security efforts," Microsoft said in a statement on Thursday.
In return, the Redmond, Wash., software giant hopes to gain from the organization's established knowledge of geospatial information and geodetics, the math and science of measuring portions of the Earth's topography, magnetic and gravitational variations, and geodynamic phenomenon.
The NGA is headquartered in Bethesda, Md., and "provides timely, relevant and accurate imagery, imagery intelligence and geospatial information in support of national security objectives," according to the government agency's Web site.
Microsoft also announced an agreement last week to provide its Virtual Earth technology to Real Tech, a provider of real estate tools. Similarly, the software giant in April signed a deal with Zillow to provide the real estate comparison Web site with Virtual Earth technology. At the time, Zillow explained that the Virtual Earth platform would provide it with both satellite and bird's-eye imagery.
Bird's-eye imagery is aerial photography taken from low-flying planes at a 45-degree angle, instead of from satellites, which give a different amount of detail.
While the NGA refers to itself as "a major combat support agency for the Department of Defense," it is unclear whether this technology will be applied to military strategy operations.
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community or is this going to be another closed proprietary effort
that cheats the mandated DoD open standards non-proprietary
requirements for software development. Coming from the one
Agency that should be supporting open standards and open
software so that the rest of the IC and DoD community including
our friends can all use the software without later owing their souls
to MS.
community or is this going to be another closed proprietary effort
that cheats the mandated DoD open standards non-proprietary
requirements for software development. Coming from the one
Agency that should be supporting open standards and open
software so that the rest of the IC and DoD community including
our friends can all use the software without later owing their souls
to MS.
All are, at the end of the day, comprised of archived static images
taken sometime in the past.
The real advantage comes when one can provide a LIVE view. The
question is - who will get that first?
in other words - it won't be you.
All are, at the end of the day, comprised of archived static images
taken sometime in the past.
The real advantage comes when one can provide a LIVE view. The
question is - who will get that first?
in other words - it won't be you.
Our government and our tax dollars at work:-(
Our government and our tax dollars at work:-(
New York shot. At least google keeps theirs more up to date.
New York shot. At least google keeps theirs more up to date.