Archive for March, 2008

I'm getting excited about Google I/O May 28th & 29th in San Francisco. The reason I'm excited is that many of you will be there too, and it will be a great chance to meet. Google I/O is like the Google Developer Day we had last year, which in turn was based on Google Geo Developer Day, which we had two years ago. This year, there will be a whole track on Maps & Geo, including KML, Maps, and Mapplets. There will, of course, be other tracks, AJAX, APIs & Tools, Social, and Mobile. Both Pamela and I will be there, along with all the Google Geo stars.

The event won’t be limited to just Google APIs and developer tools. There is a lot of knowledge about web development in general at Google, and we’d like to share that expertise so that all applications on the web get better. And of course, we're focusing a lot on Open Source tools, like the new libkml (more about that in a later post).

Over the two days of Google I/O, Google engineers and other leading software developers will share their knowledge in breakout sessions, hands-on Code Labs, and Q&A Fireside Chats. That's your chance to sit down with Google engineers and ask all the questions you've ever wanted to, as well as meet each other.

Visit the Google I/O website to learn more and register. Space is limited, so be sure to make plans to attend now.

And after Google I/O, we'll be doing other developer days all over the world, so if you can't make it to SF, hopefully you can make it to one closer to you.

Over 3½ years ago, the Live Search team started a blog. About two years ago we started this blog on Windows Live Spaces. Since then, each post on the original blog has been mirrored to Live Spaces.

To end the redundancy, on April 7, 2008 we will retire the blog on Live Spaces. The official team blog will continue at http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch.

If you subscribe to this blog via RSS reader, please update the link to:

• http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/rss.xml (for RSS 2.0)
• http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/atom.xml (for Atom)

We look forward to continuing the dialog at http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch!

The Live Search team

Over 3½ years ago, the Live Search team started a blog. About two years ago we started this blog on Windows Live Spaces. Since then, each post on the original blog has been mirrored to Live Spaces.

To end the redundancy, on April 7, 2008 we will retire the blog on Live Spaces. The official team blog will continue at http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch.

If you subscribe to this blog via RSS reader, please update the link to:

• http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/rss.xml (for RSS 2.0)
• http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/atom.xml (for Atom)

We look forward to continuing the dialog at http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch!

The Live Search team

For the past three months I have had the great pleasure of working as an intern with the Google Maps API team in Sydney. Unfortunately my time is now up and I must head back to the mundane life of a undergraduate scholar, but before I do I'm ecstatic to announce that my intern project is FINALLY complete: Street View is now in the Google Maps API!

Many of you will already have seen Street View as part of maps.google.com. If you haven't, click this link to give it a go. Street View allows users to view 3D panoramas of various locations around the world and to navigate around neighborhoods as if they were (almost) really there.

We've worked hard to ensure that Street View in the API gives developers the power and control they need to embed this functionality in their own websites in whatever way they wish. The API allows you to embed one or multiple panoramas in any location on a site and move, remove, hide and unhide them as necessary. Panoramas can also be easily integrated with the rest of the Google Maps API to allow synchronization between the map and the panorama viewer. The blue tile layer overlays which show where Street View data is available can be added to your own maps using the GStreetviewOverlay class. The following example mimics the Google Maps functionality with the tile layer and rotating Street View icon:

By far the coolest feature (in my opinion) is the ability to control the embedded viewer using Javascript functions on the GStreetviewPanorama object. The panTo function changes the current point of view by performing a smooth animation between the current and target view. An example of this is the app below which does a 360 degree pan around the current location (for all you people too lazy to use your mouse):

There's a whole lot more functionality available in the API than I could ever cover in one blog post, so check out the documentation, reference, demos, and start experimenting! Once you're done, post a link to your experiment in the forum. We'll check them out, post the most fun and practical demos in a blog post and our demo gallery, and send the authors some nifty Google schwag.

Before I sign off, I'd like to thank the entire Google Maps team for their help in getting this project complete. I had a fantastic time interning with Google and learnt a phenomenal amount.

In the talk I gave last fall about Maps Mashups Usability, I mentioned that one way to make your map more informative at first glance is to use the color and size of a marker to indicate categorical or density information. Previously, that would mean using an image editing program or server-side image generation script to create all the various marker icons needed. Now, with the introduction of MapIconMaker v1.0 into the open-source utility library, all that's needed is a Javascript include and a bit of code. For example, the simple demo shows how the following line of code creates a GIcon that's 64 by 64 pixels and has a green fill.

var newIcon = MapIconMaker.createMarkerIcon({width: 64, height: 64, primaryColor: "#00ff00"});

Behind the scenes, that line of code constructs the URLs for the various GIcon properties by using a special output of the Chart API to generate marker icon images. But don't worry about that - just use our nifty MarkerIconOptions wizard to preview various settings, and then copy the generated code into your own mashup.

We loved the dynamic icons so much that we couldn't wait to start using them - so some of you might have already seen them in use for Google's Decision 2008 mapplet/map (screenshot below). At the zoomed out view, the map contains dynamically sized and colored markers for each state. The color represents the candidate that got the most votes, and the size represents the relative number of votes that candidate received. When you zoom into the state, the map then contains markers for each voting precinct representing the same data. It's a great way to quickly understand the population density and voting habits of a region.

We hope you enjoy MapIconMaker as much as we do. Please look through the reference and examples, and let us know if you have any questions in the forum.

In the talk I gave last fall about Maps Mashups Usability, I mentioned that one way to make your map more informative at first glance is to use the color and size of a marker to indicate categorical or density information. Previously, that would mean using an image editing program or server-side image generation script to create all the various marker icons needed. Now, with the introduction of MapIconMaker v1.0 into the open-source utility library, all that's needed is a Javascript include and a bit of code. For example, the simple demo shows how the following line of code creates a GIcon that's 64 by 64 pixels and has a green fill.

var newIcon = MapIconMaker.createMarkerIcon({width: 64, height: 64, primaryColor: "#00ff00"});

Behind the scenes, that line of code constructs the URLs for the various GIcon properties by using a special output of the Chart API to generate marker icon images. But don't worry about that - just use our nifty MarkerIconOptions wizard to preview various settings, and then copy the generated code into your own mashup.

We loved the dynamic icons so much that we couldn't wait to start using them - so some of you might have already seen them in use for Google's Decision 2008 mapplet/map (screenshot below). At the zoomed out view, the map contains dynamically sized and colored markers for each state. The color represents the candidate that got the most votes, and the size represents the relative number of votes that candidate received. When you zoom into the state, the map then contains markers for each voting precinct representing the same data. It's a great way to quickly understand the population density and voting habits of a region.

We hope you enjoy MapIconMaker as much as we do. Please look through the reference and examples, and let us know if you have any questions in the forum.

We've deployed all the features mentioned in the previous blog post. Here's a recap:

Search

Blog search is finally in Beta, and we've incorporated some popular Ask 3D features. For example, related searches are displayed in the right-hand column next to results. All of classic's features are still there, but with newer styling.

Flickr View

Selecting a Flickr feed and viewing it in quick view now uses the Flickr API to show images at their maximum resolution.

Add Page

Beta's old add page was spartan, to say the least. The new Add page has package tracking, weather feeds, and a new feature: Packs. You can now add popular categories of feeds with a single mouse click.

Enjoy!

- Eric Engleman and the Bloglines Team

Today, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Komoku to add to Forefront and Windows Live OneCare's technological capabilities.  I would like to take this opportunity to review the year since my "Hello World" blog post and again provide insight on where we will be going.

< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 

A year ago, I noted our test results were "not stellar" :-). We were lacking VB100 certification, and independent test results placed us ten to fifteen points behind where we hoped to score.  I then promised that we were going to do our best to obtain the VB100 every time after. And while always concentrating on what was important—the malware most likely to affect our users—we brought our test scores on par with the rest of the industry. This year is going well, and we now have test results again to see how we delivered on those promises.

Virus Bulletin continues its bi-monthly VB100 Awards, and both Forefront and Windows Live OneCare have obtained VB100 Awards each time they were considered, five in total.  That is no simple task as many products, some sporting incredible streaks previously, managed to have that streak broken in that time.  We continue to maintain our certifications by ICSA Labs (www.icsalabs.com) and West Coast Labs (www.westcoastlabs.org).  Additionally, we now seek and obtain “Cleaning” certification.  That means malware removal is now also being certified.

In the area of test scores, we attained the level where we are competitive in our detection rates.  AV-Comparatives (www.av-comparatives.org), which had rated us a Fail with 82.4% last year, now rates our detection as Advanced at 93.9%.  At the same time, AV-Test (www.av-test.org) shows our detection rate to be 97.8%. This is above most of the other products listed, including those we consider our peers.  Last year, I had said, "You will see our results gradually and steadily increase until they are on par with the other majors in this arena.  And soon after, they will need to catch up to us!"  I think we are somewhere between those two sentences.

But, why the difference between the two scores?  Isn’t that a significant difference?

AV-Test used malware exclusively from the two months prior to its test.  AV-Comparatives, on the other hand, used malware stemming up to three years past.  The higher detection of more recent malware highlights our dedication to protect our users from malware that they will more likely encounter.  Malware older than a year, or even six months, that hasn't been seen in that time, is not likely to be encountered again.  Malware writers are more keen to create new malware that none of the security products detect than to reuse old malware that some already detect.  This issue of meaningful testing is an area that the newly forming Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO) seeks to address.

So, are we “stellar” yet?  That would imply that we are satisfied with where we are.  So, the obvious answer is that we will never feel satisfied. 

AV-Test.org tests more than just malware detection.  There are criteria where we still need to improve.  Among them are rootkit detection, generic/proactive capabilities and response time. 

Response time is a component in how we support our users.  Now, with fully staffed Research Labs in < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Dublin (headed by Katrin Totcheva) and Melbourne (headed by Jakub Kaminski) and beefing up Redmond with the addition of Joe Hartmann, we are well suited to do our best to support our users.

And now back to the acquisition of Komoku.  The addition of Komoku, especially its talented core of researchers, will add to our proactive capabilities in detecting zero-day vulnerabilities and improve rootkit detection.  We are very excited and hope soon to conquer these next challenges.

-- Jimmy Kuo

For additional information visit: http://blogs.technet.com/forefront/archive/2008/03/20/microsoft-acquires-komoku.aspx

Hi everyone, my name is Dan Rummel and I've been hacking Google Maps out of the San Francisco area for a couple years now. Recently I have been working hard on a start-up with a couple of college buddies: Seero.com (Putting live video on the map). In our UI, we want people to interact and explore using maps as much as possible, something we like to call GeoSurfing. However, sometimes after dragging and zooming a few times, one can quickly get lost in the middle of nowhere and unable to get back to the original viewport. So at the Google Javascript Hackathon, I started working on MarkerTracker, which is kind of like radar for 'important' markers. It's a simple and customizable tool that utilizes GPolyline to display directional indicators for markers that are out of view. Check out this simple example:

And to prove that the MarkerTracker can be used for something more advanced -- and to wish everyone a happy St. Patrick's Day -- here's a leprechaun chasing game:

A big thanks to Pamela Fox and all the developers who have contributed to the Google Maps Open Source utility library, it is a fantastic resource. Of course if you want to learn more about MarkerTracker check out the class reference and more examples. As always, please report any issues you find in the developer forum.

Due to the usage of non-latin characters in languages like Russian, and our decision to label countries and cities in their native tongue, I've always found browsing foreign countries in Google Maps to be quite the educational experience. How else would I have discovered that other languages have such pretty swirly letters? Unfortunately, it's also quite a frustrating experience when you're actually trying to find some place in those countries ("Tokyo! SHOW ME TOKYO!! aRrrgghghH!"). Well, thankfully the Google Maps team has now made it easier to have both an educational and satisfying experience with the recent introduction of transliterated tiles for Russia, Greece, Japan, and Thailand.

For users with a browser setting for the native languages of those countries, they'll continue seeing the tiles with just the labels in that language. But for everyone else, they'll see tiles with both the labels in the native character set and in the latin character set below it. You can trust the language setting to get that effect in the Maps API, or if you'd like, you can force a particular output in both the Javascript and Static Maps API by appending the"hl" parameter to the script src or image src with the desired language value. Experiment with the various language/country combinations in the example below to see this in action in both the Static and Javascript APIs: