BING MAPS / TED TALKS

Blaise Agüera y Arcas is the architect of Bing Maps at Microsoft, currently concentrating on building augmented reality into searchable maps. He's also the co-creator of Photosynth, software that blends static photos to create a 3D synergy of zoomable, navigable spaces. One of Fast Company's Most Creative People 2009, he recently wowed the audience at TED in Long Beach, California.

Agüera y Arcas explained his vision of how Bing is redefining the way maps work online to the TED audience - not only through cartography, but as a virtual construction of the city, with the ability to view buildings at 45 degrees. He demonstrated in real-time how the green bubbles on the map represent photosynths - mash-ups of photographs used to create 3D interactive visualisations of a space - that have been integrated into the maps to give a more in-depth view of a particular spot or location. These photosynths are able to integrate geo-tagged crowd-sourced imagery from sites such as Flickr directly into the maps.

Bing Maps integrate many of Agüera y Arcas' other achievements, including Seadragon - a visualisation technology he created that was bought by Microsoft in 2006. Seadragon enables the seamless flow from one area of a map into another, while photosynth patches images together.

The demonstration showed how inside areas can be documented as well as streets, using pictures taken inside buildings. Even more impressive was the demo of live broadcasts taking place within the maps, with Blaise's team broadcasting from within a market for the demo, appearing over other images in the maps. Another exciting integration was the inclusion of Microsoft's Worldwide Telescope, which visualises an astronomically complete plot of star constellations in the sky.

The maps don't just allow you to explore space - the capacity to store historical data means that users can also 'travel' through time.

Watch the TED video above to see Blaise Agüera y Arcas' talk in full or head to www.ted.com for more talks from this TED event and others.

Agüera y Arcas explained to the audience at TED that he views these kind of photo-constructed environments as the foundation for augmented reality, and its potential, above and beyond the simple layers and hotspots that we've seen so far, seems vastly impressive, offering huge opportunities for exploration - both literally and virtually.