Microsoft is announcing some cool new features in Bing Maps today. The map service’s revamp in December already made it much more visually impressive than Google Maps, a more established competitor, and these new features build on that lead.

The feature that’s now live in a preview version is called Streetside Photos. It pulls images that from photo-sharing site Flickr that have been geotagged and approved for reproduction, and overlays them on the existing streetside imagery. So when you look a location on Bing, you’re not just seeing the default photo set that Microsoft has created, but hopefully a whole range of photos from Flickr. That might be useful, for example, if you want to see what a neighborhood looks like at different times of the day.

Bing Maps architect Blaise Aguera y Arcas demonstrated Streetside Photos on-stage at the TED conference today, according to Microsoft. He also showed off a few upcoming features that also enrich Bing Maps’ visuals.

The maps’ Streetside mode will integrate with Microsoft’s World Wide Telescope project, so you can see the stars above when you look up in streetside view. It will also incorporate a feature called “indoor panoramas,” so that you can explore the interior locations. (The image above comes from Seattle’s Pike Place Market.) And users will also be able to overlay live video on a map, so you can see what’s happening somewhere at that very second.

Microsoft posted strong earnings for the final three months of 2009, but some parts of its business have been having a harder time, executives acknowledged during an analyst conference call this afternoon. The company’s good news was driven by strong sales of Windows 7, while business sales are lagging.

There’s a clear contrast in tthe revenue numbers Microsoft posted today. During the last three months of 2008, business revenue outpaced Windows and Windows Live revenue, $4.9 billion to $4.1 billion. A year later, Windows leaped past to $6.9 billion, while business revenue fell slightly to $4.7 billion.

“While we have yet to see a return on business spending growth, the consumer segment continues to perform better than expected,” said Bill Koefoed, Microsoft’s general manager of investor relations.

The question-and-answer session at the end of the call seemed pretty brief, but Microsoft found time for a few answers about the enterprise sales. Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein said that it’s taking longer and longer to close those sales, and there’s sometimes a gap between the expiration of old deals and the start of new agreements — but in most cases, Microsoft isn’t losing those customers.

One analyst asked whether Microsoft expects things to remain sluggish in the coming months.

“The thing that I can say is that we have the great product pipeline,” Klein said. “We don’t have visibility into exactly what business spend will be, so we’re just going to have to work through that in the next couple quarters.”

During the just-ended quarter, Microsoft also continued its cuts with another 800 layoffs. The company’s scheduled releases this year include Windows Mobile 7 (which Microsoft is expected to demo at the Mobile World Congress in February) and Office 2010.

Microsoft took another blow today in its legal battle over Microsoft Word. A federal appeals court upheld a ruling against the software giant, stating that Word violates a patent owned by Toronto-based company i4i. The court ordered Microsoft to stop selling versions of Word containing the offending feature by Jan. 11.

That’s about three weeks away, but Microsoft says it has been preparing for this possibility since the initial ruling in August. That means consumers should be able to continue buying copies of Word and Office without a hitch. The company said:

With respect to Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007, we have been preparing for this possibility since the District Court issued its injunction in August 2009 and have put the wheels in motion to remove this little-used feature from these products. Therefore, we expect to have copies of Microsoft Word 2007 and Office 2007, with this feature removed, available for U.S. sale and distribution by the injunction date. In addition, the beta versions of Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010, which are available now for downloading, do not contain the technology covered by the injunction.

The “little-used feature” in question involves how Word deals with the XML format. (i4i’s products include an application for creating XML documents in Word.)

Oh, and in addition to the injunction on selling Word, the appeals court also upheld the $240 million payment that Microsoft is supposed to make to i4i. Microsoft says that even though it will obey the injunction, it’s also looking at other legal options, such as requesting another hearing or appealing to the Supreme Court.

It’s still about a year away from release, but Microsoft and Bungie teased the release of their next big game, Halo: Reach.

The 2.5-minute trailer is based on the opening cinematic footage for the sci-fi shooting game, which is the fifth major release in the Halo series since the first game debuted for the original Xbox in 2001. This game is going to be one of the most highly anticipated of next year, since the Halo games are on their way to 30 million in sales to date.

The multiplayer beta of Halo: Reach is set for next spring, and buyers of Halo 3: ODST, launched this fall, will receive invitations for it. The released scene hints at the story of Halo: Reach, which will be based on the first Halo novel, Eric Nylund’s Halo: The Fall of Reach. It shows Spartan super-soldiers of the same sort as Master Chief, who appeared as the main character in the first three Halo games. Reach is a planet that is wiped out, or “glassed,” by the Covenant alien invaders.

The last tease of the game was at E3 in June, so the gamer blogs are wagging tongues about the latest disclosure. There are multiple Spartan soldiers shown in the trailer, a couple with their masks off. They board some cool looking helicopters and fly into what looks like a storm of nuclear weapons.

Bungie is the Seattle-based game developer making the game. Microsoft will publish it as an exclusive on the Xbox 360 game console. The trailer was one of a number shown off at the SpikeTV Video Game Awards 2009 show this weekend.

Microsoft’s search engine Bing announced today that users can test out a new version of its mapping service. The big idea, in Microsoft’s words, is to go beyond “how to get from point A to point B” and instead “connect [users'] virtual queries to the physical world.” Since I’m a pretty heavy Google Maps user, I wanted to give the new Bing Maps a try.

My conclusion: Bing is doing a lot of cool stuff, but I’m sticking with Google for now.

To be clear, I didn’t play with Bing enough to do a full review, and I know there are many features I’m not even touching on here. I’m just offering my first impressions based on some of my common activities in Google. So let’s take a typical query: I want to get from my apartment in San Francisco to a startup office in Palo Alto.

I entered the starting and stopping address in both maps, and immediately noticed a bunch of ways in which Bing is superior. First of all, it’s built using Microsoft’s Silverlight technology, so Bing Maps simply looks cooler and sleeker than Google. Second, it lets you plot the route based on either distance or time, and also based on current traffic conditions. Third, Bing makes a lot of extra information about my route and destination more accessible. I can click a button below my directions to see all the gas stations along the route. Or if I want to find a coffee shop where I can work after my meeting in Palo Alto, I can click a button to see nearby businesses, then choose the “coffee shops” option.

There’s a big deficiency though: I can’t use Bing to plot mass transit or walking directions. This may seem like a small thing to you, but  I look up bus directions on Google Maps far more often than I look up coffee shops. If I need a coffee shop I can always use Yelp or the iPhone app AroundMe. (Both products integrate Google Maps, incidentally.)

More broadly, getting directions is still the most popular location-based query in Bing, so I don’t think I’m alone in prioritizing the direction over the other bells and whistles. On that front, Bing Maps has a lot going for it, but without bus directions it’s still half-useless to me. And a half-useless search engine, stacked up against Google, is pretty much totally useless.

Six months after launching the Bing search engine, Microsoft has finally added in a lot of the powerful features that most users expected back in June. An expansive upgrade to Bing Maps went live earlier today. In addition, Microsoft has formally announced several other features that have quietly been live for awhile.

The Bing Blog has a long post that walks through the features Microsoft formally announced and demoed at a press conference in San Francisco on Wednesday morning. (Great trivia from the post: The most common decision people try to make using Bing is what to wear based on the weather.) Here’s a rundown of the major upgrades:

• Entity cards for people, places and things. These are index card-like summaries of info about a person, place or thing, always with a thumbnail photo or image. The cards are served as the primary result for many searches now, pushing the traditional “ten blue links” list of ranked Web pages aside to deliver quick-reference facts. For example, see the result for University of Maine shown below. Bing team members told journalists this morning that the content on the cards is composed of what they found most people are looking for when they search. It’s a big shift away from providing links to Web pages as results. Google shows you where to get the answer. Bing gives you the answer.

• Mobile phone results focused on one likely answer. On Bing’s mobile site, m.bing.com, results are even more driven toward one answer instead of a list. Bing assumes the mobile search user is most likely seeking directions and/or contact info. I don’t have a screenshot of the mobile UI, but it features a prominent Directions button.

• Greatly enhanced Bing Maps. There are several new features. Bing Maps now makes heavy use of Microsoft’s Flash-like Silverlight player, rather than Web standard Ajax, to perform visual tricks not possible with Ajax. Bing Maps can morph seamlessly between different views that come from different sets of data, rather than clearing the screen and repainting it as Google Maps does. There’s a Streetside feature that’s much like Google’s Street View. Finally, location-based mashups are possible. Bing automatically includes, for example, Twitter Maps, which display fresh tweets pinned to the map locations of the people who tweeted them.

• Facebook and Twitter integration – Microsoft demoed a not-live-yet Bing search of a user’s Facebook info that was more visual and less intractable than Facebook’s UI. For example, a clickable grid composed of friends’ faces made it easy to see their fresh updates. Bing also provides visual pages that show several different rankings of top Twitter users. The Twitter searches were restricted to the main public stream, rather than searching the user’s followees.

In screenshots below: Bing Maps, and a typical result card.

Here’s the latest action:

Amazon Web Services now calculates your app costs — To give users a better idea of how their applications will work and how much they will cost to run on Amazon Web Services, the company has just released a redesign of its AWS Simple Monthly Calculator. This tool allows users to select their regions and services in order to generate a customized quote.

Google Maps Navigation comes to Android — Owners of phones running Android 1.6 and higher now have access to Google Maps Navigation, the beta release that allows GPS-based voice guidance and automatic rerouting when you take a wrong turn. The app also lets you access My Maps, view transit lines, and read Wikipedia articles connected to locations. Before, Navigation was only available on Android 2.0 devices.

Zoho launches new recruiting tool — Productivity software provider Zoho has just added a new arrow to its quiver: Zoho Recruit, a web-based application that helps human resources departments recruit and hire new employees. Now only does it track job openings and organize resumes, candidates and contact information, it also crawls the web for resumes that might fit open positions, and automatically weeds out unqualified applicants. TechCrunch has more.

Taptu also joins Android — Real-time search engine Taptu has been optimized for use on Android phones, allowing users to find touch-friendly content on a very simple interface. The application is said to be very light. Its next iteration will include sharing capabilities with Twitter and Facebook, as well as the ability to search for other applications.

Microsoft urges News Corp., other publishers to cut Google loose — Everyone knows that Rupert Murdoch is trying to distance his News Corp. empire from Google, and has already stressed his desire to take the content produced by the company out of its indexing system. Now News Corp. might even get money out of Microsoft for doing so. The latter says it might start paying publishers and media companies to de-index their news from Google.

MSNBC signs with BNO — BNO News, owner of the popular @breakingnews Twitter feed and iPhone app, has landed its first client: MSNBC.com, which will take over operation of @breakingnews at the beginning of December so that it will now link to stories on its domain. This is part of BNO’s impending January launch of its wire-service, which will also feed into the same Twitter stream, which now has more than 1.4 million followers.

Spotify now on Symbian — European music streaming application Spotify is now available on the Symbian mobile operating system, which covers many Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung phones. Just like those who use Spotify on the iPhone, Symbian subscribers will have to pay a $16 monthly fee to access the service. This way, songs can be downloaded directly to the device so users can listen even when they have no cell phone service.

Much has been written about how the bitter rivalry between Google and Microsoft has extended to their respective home energy management systems, Google PowerMeter and Microsoft Hohm. But most of these stories make it sound like the tools render the same service: reporting how much energy people are using and how much it is costing them. Few have sussed out their subtler differences.

With so many smaller players in the home energy monitoring field (think OpenPeak, Tendril, People Power, Gridpoint, etc.), Microsoft and Google have been predicted to rise to the fore — but which will ultimately triumph? Here’s an insiders’ guide to where they diverge.

• Both Hohm and PowerMeter tap into smart meters to track how much energy households are using, and plot this data along a timeline.
• PowerMeter essentially won the race, appearing in February, while Hohm launched in June.
• PowerMeter has a more global presence, partnering with utilities in Germany, India and Canada. Hohm is so far limited to the U.S.
• Hohm aspires to track all household energy use, including gas. Google has not set out these goals.
• Both are partnering with utilities that are rolling out smart meters to their coverage areas. Google has partnered with nine utilities and has deployed PowerMeter with Yello Strom in Germany. Microsoft is partnering with four utilities and has rolled out with Seattle City Light, and recently Xcel Energy.
• In order to operate in homes that are not yet equipped with smart meters, Google has partnered with two companies that make devices that channel energy consumption data without the meter, AlertMe and The Energy Detective. The Hohm team says it will look into doing the same, but hasn’t made any announcements yet.
• If no advanced meter or third-party device is installed, Hohm still estimates how much energy is being consumed based on location and information provided by users, and compares it to national and regional averages to recommend ways to conserve. Google never asks users to enter their own information.
• Google has a strategic partnership with major smart meter maker Itron and the National Information Solutions Cooperative. Hohm also works with Itron, as well as European meter maker Landis+Gyr.
• Google will present PowerMeter data on users’ iGoogle homepages, to make it part of their regular daily workflow. Microsoft Hohm users need to log into Microsoft-Hohm.com to see their information.
• Hohm provides users with more general conservation recommendations, like window caulking, installing a programmable thermostat, other home weatherizing techniques. Google doesn’t do this.
• Hohm incorporates a social-networking bent, allowing users to share home energy-saving tips and discussing behavioral and consumption patterns. Google doesn’t do this either.
• The Hohm team has expressed more interest in working with smart appliance and plug makers to drill even deeper into how people use their energy. PowerMeter has been much less interested, hinting that it will rely on third-party developers to build on these solutions.
• Google does not plan to charge any PowerMeter users for the service, which is run under its Google.org division. Hohm is free for consumers but plans to make money via contextual ads, and for utilities start paying when it introduces remote appliance and home energy control capabilities.
• Hohm has been more aggressive in its marketing strategy, tweeting and gathering fans on Facebook. Google hasn’t pursued these avenues as seriously.

While respectable utilities have signed on with both Google and Microsoft, some of the larger players have chosen to go a different way entirely. Pacific Gas & Electric, for example, said in July that it will wait for a less commercial, standardized interface that passes muster with the Open Smart Grid Goup. This is a common complaint among utilities: They want to make sure whatever home energy monitor they choose communicates seamlessly with other Smart Grid equipment.

The delay may help accelerate the development of universal standards, but it could also prematurely deflate initiatives at Microsoft and Google, which have yet to catch real momentum.

VentureBeat is hosting GreenBeat, the seminal executive conference on the Smart Grid, on Nov. 18-19, featuring keynotes from Nobel Prize winner Al Gore and Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr. Register for your ticket today at GreenBeat2009.com.

Microsoft Hohm, the software giant’s new home energy management system, is now available for the 3.4 million households served by utility Xcel Energy. This is the first time the tool, which makes energy use and pricing data available via a web interface, has been tested with a mass audience.

Xcel provides power to a diverse geographic customer base — spanning Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin — and drawing power from coal, wind, solar, hydro, nuclear and biomass sources. Maybe this is why it was selected as the first test market for Hohm. Microsoft also names utilities like the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Seattle City Light and Puget Sound Energy as partners, but its unclear when they will receive access.

Hohm, still in beta form, is a free service that utility customers have to choose to sign up for. In addition to being able to view how much power they are using and how much it is costing, they will also receive personalized recommendations for how they can save more money off their electricity bills right on their internet browsers. This adds Xcel to the tide of utilities looking to add home energy management services to their portfolios of offerings.

Xcel has been interested in making these capabilities available to its customers for a while. It’s also running Boulder, Colo.’s SmartGridCity project — an initiative to tie together technologies and services from companies like Accenture, Current Group, GridPoint, OSIsoft, SmartSynch and Ventyx into a holistic Super Grid pilot.

Xcel plans to partner with GridPoint, a provider of Smart Grid software, to roll out its own home energy management dashboard in Boulder by the end of the year (even though its a direct competitor to Hohm).

Google Powermeter, another Hohm rival — perhaps the most important one — has also announced partnerships with nine utilities, as well as smart meter maker Itron and home management device makers The Energy Detective and AlertMe. It doesn’t appear to be threatened by Hohm so far, but if the latter picks up speed, it could turn into a race for utilities’ favor.

VentureBeat is hosting GreenBeat, the seminal executive conference on the Smart Grid, on Nov. 18-19, featuring keynotes from Nobel Prize winner Al Gore and Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr. Register for your ticket today at GreenBeat2009.com.

Earlier today, we spotlit an excellent blog post co-authored by Google CEO Eric Schmidt about how energy efficiency policies and enterprises will infuse the economy. The opportunity is so great that the search engine has staked out its own claim with the launch of its home energy management system, PowerMeter, a tool that allows you to view your energy consumption and what it’s costing you right in your internet browser. As omnipotent as Google sometime seems, the service’s rollout is still dependent on partnerships with utilities and Smart Grid device makers — and the company is avidly pursuing both.

Some have said that Google PowerMeter could reach hundreds of thousands of homes as early as the end of this year — if all goes well. The company itself says that that figure is probably an overstatement, and that a lot of factors would have to click perfectly into place to make it happen.

Somewhat unusual for Google, the system actually depends on an independent device that connects to users’ fuse boxes or smart meters and wirelessly beams basic energy use data back to servers where it can be sliced and diced and served up in a usable format. Right now, it is working with major smart meter supplier Itron. Google says it is looking to partner with at least one more major maker of these devices before the end of the year.

It will also look to make deals with up to a dozen more utilities to deploy Google PowerMeter in their coverage areas. All of these utilities already need to have installed smart meters — a new type of meter that wirelessly beams energy consumption data in real time to both utilities and their customers. So far, Google has recruited nine such energy providers into its fold: Glasgow EPB (Kentucky), JEA (Northeast Florida), Reliance Energy (India), San Diego Gas and Electric, Toronto Hydro-Electric System Limited, TXU Energy (Texas), White River Valley Electric Cooperative (Missouri), Wisconsin Public Service, and Yello Strom (Germany). This list will probably more than double by the end of this year, Google says. It’s unclear whether it’s already initiated talks with other companies, and if so who.

Even if the company is able to solidify these partnerships, PowerMeter’s success and market share — vying against competitors like Microsoft’s similar Hohm service — will still rest on Google’s ability to implement new technologies. When the service was first announced, it said eventually users would be able to see energy data for individual appliances. In order for this to happen, companies like Whirlpool and General Electric will need to come out with more “smart appliances” (like the clothes dryer Whirlpool plans to sell a million of by 2011). Either that, or new sensors will need to be developed to facilitate communication between older appliances and the PowerMeter interface. On top of that, all of these players will need to agree on and adopt an open set of standards that allow free communication between a range of devices, networks and brands.

For the time being, Google says it will wait to see how the standards skirmish shakes out (it says it’s keeping an eye on the standards drafting process overseen by the National Institute of Standards Testing, but playing no major role), opting instead to hunker down and make as many allies as possible. That way, when the technology does become available, it can sprint to hit that rumored “hundreds of thousands” goal sometime next year.