Windows Live Local
 

In case anyone hasn't come across it, Microsoft's answer to Google maps is worth a look:

http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v...&scene=4324311

I haven't found any highly detailed areas in Ireland, but it still has higher detail than Google's satellite imagery.

What I find humourus about this is that back in '96 Microsoft set up terraserver.microsoft.com which was a site with satellite imagery. Years went by and people forgot about it and then Google created Google earth and everyone was amazed by how cool and dynamic Google were to do this.......

Terraserver was quite cool at the time, and we've had various mapping sites since then which gave access to large amounts of mapping data. Google Maps is quite clever in the way it combines maps with differing levels of detail (though that was nothing new in itself). What was new was the highly interactive navigation, which completly changed the way we look at online maps.

Also... terraserver was slow as a result of a less powerful server farm and the generally lower bandwidth prevailing at the time. I think the intention was to be a proof of concept of the scalability of MS Database solutions rather than having an application.

You could be on to something there. Remember though, a terabyte was A LOT of data back then. It may have been slow but it was ground breaking at the time.