Good news for all Bing Maps developers with windows update 979202 solving a major performance issue. CPU usage is high when you use the Deep Zoom feature in Silverlight 3. This problem occurs when the Deep Zoom feature cannot load or decode a tile. The problem persists even if you minimize the Web browser in which the Silverlight 3 application is running. This would occur if you had either : a custom tile layer that would return 404 errors when tiles were requested (typical for a simple file system on edge tiles that don’t exist but are still requested by the control) or if you disabled the coverage map of the base layers and zoomed into the non-covered area. Additionally my tests prove that an additional problem with animations causing the MSI control to redraw have also been solved. This is great news and allows us to do some clever things with dynamic tile layers and animated icons on the map without major performance hits. I hope to share some of these with you in coming posts.

Think you’re savvy enough to navigate Bing Maps faster than anyone else? Answer 4 questions and you’ll be in the running to win a $100 gift card courtesy of the Bing Maps team. Take the Bing Maps Challenge now. CP – Follow me on Twitter @ChrisPendleton

National Geographic has been hard at work getting their atlas of maps into your grubby little hands. And as such, they’ve released their newest mobile application for iPhone – World Atlas (iTunes link). The application allows you to view 7 different levels of cartography, 3 maps styles and the ability to find locations around the world with nearly 7 million place listings. And, of course, the Bing Maps Platform has been integrated right into their application as a mapping option. Here’s a quick run down of the features I snagged from their site: High resolution National Geographic cartography, the same used to print our award-winning wall maps and bound atlases! Preloaded with 3 different styles of world maps, down to country detail. Additional detailed zoom levels and Microsoft Bing maps r

The Haitian Earthquakes have captured the eyes of the world. As part of the effort, Bing Maps is doing what we can to help the world see the changes over time around Haiti by unveiling the Haiti Earthquake application in the application gallery. The concept of the application allows users to view the aerial imagery before and after the earthquake. The application allows you to select to view imagery before the earthquake or after the quake (dated January 15, 2010). Also included in the application is a link to our Twitter Maps application focused on Haiti using the Geolocation API from Twitter which allows you to view Tweets coming from people in Haiti. My heart goes out to those who have been affected by this travesty. Other Microsoft efforts in Haiti: