Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Steve Lombardi

Joseph Schwartz

Gur Kimchi

Alexander G Gounares

Stephen L Lawler

Ashok Kuppusamy

Raymond Edward Endres

Amit Dekate

Eric J Horvitz

Eyal Ofek

Jin Li

John Charles Krumm

Xin Wu

Jeffrey Darren Couckuyt

Chandrasekhar Thota

Anurag Sharma

Alan Paulin

Tanya L Swartz

Zhenyu Qian

Yue Zhuge

Matthew Man Chung Cheung

Provided is a single repository for capturing, connecting, sharing, and visualizing information based on a geographic location, for example. Provided is a schema, repository, index, and APIs for any information, place, entity, attribute, service or person that can be referenced geographically. A system to provide real time image data includes an input component that receives image data associated with a specific geographic area, a splitter component that splits the image data into at least two quadrants, and a storage component that stores at least a portion of the at least two quadrants. Also provides is on-line or real-time advertising based on a user's mapped location and/or a user preference.

Obtaining and displaying virtual earth images

Virtual earth mapping

Driving directions can be helpful if in addition to spatial information, landmark information is provided. Landmarks assist in adding context to directions as well as allowing for a greater likelihood of success of an operator following directions. There can be employment of physical identification of landmarks as well as processing regarding the utility of a landmark in regards to driving directions. Driving directions can be highly useful if integrated landmarks relate to knowledge possessed by an operator of a vehicle. Landmark based driving direction can be integrated with advertisements that relate to the directions.

Landmark-based routing

Location position information of a mobile device utilizing Wi-Fi, FM, AM, television transmissions(s), other radio transmission(s), electromagnetic, acoustic, or other signals received from base stations or access points. The position information can be provided through a Web service and/or locally on a mobile user device. The position information can be provided with a certainty and/or uncertainty probability percentage or other perceivable means for the user to determine the expected accuracy of the location information. Also provided is a means for updating base station information to include newly detected base stations through information from a plurality of user devices, wherein each user device is given a reliance factor. User devices that have a low reliance factor are disregarded and/or scrutinized to determine accuracy prior to such information being utilized to update information. Functioning of the system can be improved through analysis of usage data and/or the additions to the database.

Positioning service utilizing existing radio base stations

Real-time virtual earth driving information

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Steve Lombardi