Microsoft announced today that they"ve added a whopping 121 terabytes of new satellite and Global Ortho imagery to Bing Maps (and, in turn, the Windows 8 Maps app), adding to an already robust amount of images of the Earth. The new satellite imagery covers 15 million square kilometers of the globe, featuring new data in many places but predominantly South America, Africa, Asia and eastern Europe.
New satellite imagery locations featured on Bing Maps
Alongside the satellite imagery, the Bing team has also added an extra 800,000 square kilometers of Global Ortho imagery to western Europe, bringing the total global coverage to 10.7 million sq. km, including 100% of the United States. Global Ortho imagery is taken by a plane with a camera mounted underneath, as opposed to a satellite, so it delivers images of much higher clarity; Global Ortho images feature 30cm of ground area per pixel.
Locations of 30cm Global Ortho imagery; yellow indicates new images
Other developments from the Bing Maps team in terms of imagery include a refresh to the Windows desktop themes that use Bing aerial imagery, images before and after Hurricane Sandy hit the United States east coast, and a whole bunch of new images on the Bing Facebook page.
Source: Bing Maps Blog