DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Microsoft launched its Virtual Earth back in the summer as an answer to Google's immensely cool Google Maps. The MSN user interface was a little bit less simple to my eye, but the cool thing was that their aerial imagery of Downtown far surpassed the quality of Google's.

Now Microsoft has rebranded their service as Windows Live Local and added "Birds Eye view" imagery. It's pretty cool. Here's the front of my building, Premiere Towers.

Some of the imagery appears to be pretty old, so don't go trying to find the construction progress of your favorite South Park condo project. Here's a mid-construction shot of Disney Hall. You have to figure Google has a lot of this same type of imagery, so this is one arms race I fully support.