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It looks like the battle of superfluous mapping features is heating up--with Redmond in the lead once again. Microsoft revealed yesterday that its Live Search app is not only going photo realistic, but 3-D. Although NYC is the obvious flagship, another 8 major cities are also available at launch with more promised by the end of summer. You can check Microsoft's announcement and the full list of cities here.
First Impressions? It's a bit of a memory hog, and drags a little when it comes to rendering on my slower computers. But in all fairness it does deliver the cheesy "perspectives that few people — apart from Superman — have ever seen," that Microsoft promised. It's a great accomplishment for Redmond (beating Google to the punch, that is), but as far as functionality is concerned it'll be interesting to see if this app takes off. It seems like a great way to do digital sightseeing, but no photo-realistic 3-D model is ever going to improve my horrible sense of direction.
