With all of the holiday preparations going on last week, I completely missed the updates Microsoft made to their Live Search Mobile service. According to the Microsoft Virtual Earth / Live Maps blog, the following features and changes are available at http://m.live.com:
- 1-click directions for all businesses and street addresses in U.S.
- Additional details for U.S. businesses, including neighborhood, business category, cuisine (restaurants) and hours of operation
- Photos and reviews for U.S. businesses
- Improved movie show times Instant Answers (we now show critics rating)
- Added interactivity to all maps (clicking on maps now zooms in/out to predefined levels, or advanced to the next waypoint for routing maps)
- Traffic & map Instant Answers
- Mobile search for the China market. Scopes offered are local (no maps, but coming soon), web, images, news and Spaces.
I just hit up the 1-click directions for a local Starbucks and got results from the north, sound and the nearest major highway. The results appeared to return quicker than when I last used the service, but of course your mileage may vary. Too bad I didn’t see this news earlier, we could have used the info to find a good place to eat as we were just out running around. Remember, this is a web-based service, so it should work across most mobile devices with a browser.(via Neowin)
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