Windows Live for the UK has improved its satellite maps of the UK - zooming in gives much greater detail than previously, and much better than on Google Maps.
Why better? Because Microsoft has licensed (or bought) the pictures from getmapping.
Thanks for Ed Parsons (chief technology officer of Ordnance Survey) who pointed it out on his blog. He asks there:
The imagery seems to leapfrog the imagery in google earth/maps seeming to be more recent at least in the area I looked at and appears to be around the same resolution 15-20cm.
Remember Microsoft have adopted a more conventional business model with virtual earth, and are selling it as a service to commercial users, in contrast to googles surposed "non-commercial" only approach
We suspect he might be trying to make a hint about the 'Free Our Data' campaign, but have to say - commercial organisations selling data to other commercial organisations doesn't really fall into the campaign remit.
