Those who love Google Earth will definitely want to take Virtual Earth 3D (VE 3D) out for a spin. If you're among the thousands who've already bought and flown Microsoft Flight Simulator X, I'm probably preaching to the choir; VE technology is at the heart of that game. Keep in mind here that I'm not dethroning Google Earth; we're not taking away its Editors' Choice in favor of VE. What I'm doing, despite the best efforts of the folks at Microsoft to confuse everyone with name changes, is simply allowing the Editors' Choice for local search that I awarded to Windows Live Local (beta) back in February to be inherited by its offspring, the less descriptively named Live Search. The addition of Virtual Earth 3D technology has only enriched the process of local search.
Let me add that, in the future, when the folks at Google can find some way of overcoming the technical challenges of melding the richness of Google Earth and its amazing community with its own local search, they'll have a shot at the title. What would top even that would be for Google to acquire Yahoo! Local and the technology Yahoo! in turn absorbed and integrated from its acquisition of upcoming.org. Now that would be an unbeatable combination for things local