It seems once again Microsoft are playing catch up to Google - but this time I'm a bit impressed with their offering. I am of course yabbering on about MSN Virtual Earth, Microsoft's answer to Google Maps.

Essentially the interface works pretty much like Google Maps, with sat photos, keyboard shortcuts etc. A cool feature they've added is to find your location using WiFi networks - they triangulate your location using three WiFi networks around you. This has meant they've had to find out the location of a lot of WiFi networks in North America, but still cool. And I have to say I prefer the road map on this interface to Google's, it seems a bit more detailed. The zoom feature where it appears to zoom in is a little lame, but a good attempt none the less.

Overall it seems a bit quicker and stable than Google Maps, in the past with Google I've had images not load, but no problems so far with the MS offering. Obviously it is only for North America at the moment, like every new release, but no doubt the UK will come online eventually.

Get mapping....