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by vaultboy21 5011 days ago
Bing Maps have been rapidly improving over the past year and no one seems to have picked-up on it. via their deal with Nokia, Microsoft is slowly updating the backend data, incorporating Navteq's over 20+ years of mapping tech. its not quite up to parity with Nokia Maps (or Google) internationally yet, but it's come a long way and (i'm guessing) easily beats-out Apple's quickly-built homegrown implementation.

for those who don't know, Nokia owns Navteq (purchased a few years ago) which powers over 85%+ of automotive navigation systems (as well as Garmin, Mapquest, and many other popular mapping services)..
3 comments
junto 5011 days ago
My major problem with Bing is that it defaults the interface language based on your location. This is stupid. If I'm travelling in China, then having the entire interface in Chinese is completely useless.

Bing like many other major sites, make the poor assumption that the user's location == preferred language.

From a usability perspective, the interface language should primarily be based on the browser user agent Accept Language, and THEN an ip-to-geo database lookup can OFFER the user the location based user interface language.

Finally there should always be a way to change language.

Bing, as in the entirety of Bing, does not have a way to change language. I am currently in Germany, and there isn't a way for me to use the maps in English.

It is a schoolboy mistake from a major player. Idiotic if you ask me.

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ccozan 5011 days ago
Use the "gear" on the top right, go to Worldwide ( last option) and use the US or UK. The experience will be as if in the respective countries.
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junto 5011 days ago
Awesome. I've spent months being annoyed by that!
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w1ntermute 5011 days ago
I've never used Bing Maps before, but it does look pretty nice. Anybody else seeing weird graphical glitches when panning around (in Chrome on Windows 7)?
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JohnsonB 5011 days ago
Shame they seem to have given up on their version of street view, Streetside, however.
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benzor 5011 days ago
They haven't given up on it, it's just quite limited at the moment, only showing up in major US cities. I actually find it stitches together images much better than Google's Street View, although it could just be because Google's pictures were taken a long time ago.
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