Microsoft chases after Google in new, huge Bing Maps update

Microsoft’s Bing Maps team just announced a major update, introducing “street side views” (Bing’s answer to Google’s street view) to 64 new cities and 3D maps to 29 new cities.

In addition, the company announced that new “high-resolution aerial imagery” (Bing’s answer to Google’s satellite view) “is now available … in over 150 countries on every continent in the world.”

Microsoft touts that Bing Maps now features “125 highly detailed 3D cities” and 100 “street side” supported cities in total. At the very least, this is a nice addition for Windows and Windows Phone users.

But Microsoft’s progress pales in comparison to Google. To date, Google shares that it provides “panoramic Street View imagery for more than 3,000 cities across 50 countries.” Google launched Street View back in 2007, and Microsoft launched Bing Maps’ street side feature two years later. Clearly, the company has not yet caught up to Google.

The full list of supported cities is available here. Noteworthy additions include Atlanta, Las Vegas, Chicago, and Boston.