Slashgeo

ArcGIS Explorer Beta was introduced primarily as an extension, in regards to integration, to other actual ESRI products. ArcGIS Explorer will be fully customizable and skinnable. I haven't played with the beta, but the full task list is: find address, find place, find telephone number, driving directions, what's around here, what's the address here, where's this computer, add KML or MKZ, internet search. The swipe/transparency tool looked nice. All analysis is done by ArcGIS can be published to ArcGIS Explorer. It is MS Windows-only. It felt as if it might be too little too late. When asked, Bernard said they do not see Google or Microsoft as competitors.

MS's Tao distinguished Windows Live Local, seen as services, from Virtual Earth, seen as a platform for developers and partners. Bird's eye views offers added-value over orthogonal imagery.The street view in local.live.com will be integrated very soon and looked cool. You can actually drive a car with your mouse and get the street view updated instantly. Real time traffic already integrated into Live Local and extending. Saving and sharing collections of places is where Microsoft wants to attract users. Integrating is also a key word. There's even an Outlook plugin for Live Local. Text to speech is also coming to Live Local soon. The next *major* update to Local Live will be next fall and the project is codenamed "Endeavour" and seems to focus on collaboration. When asked how Microsoft will beat Google, Tao said it is with data acquisition that Microsoft will rule the geographic exploration systems world.

The third speaker of Skyline. They offer a surprisingly good web-application, without advertizing and providing free API. Skyline has most of its clients in the military/intelligence playground. Amongst the features, it was very fast to load imagery, even for high textured 3D buildings. Live and non-live video streaming is also greatly integrated, dubbed "video on terrain". The demo showed a pool where people were swimming. That's a part of the future: animated virtual globes. Collaborative guided tours is also interesting, you can control other people's globes to show them whatever you want. It offers many other features such as p2p chatting. When asked about the competition, Skyline simply want to slowly extend their actual intelligence customers. They even think about going back to the gaming industry with their virtual globe.

I wonder if a NASA World Wind was invited. Too bad the Google Rep could not make it.