The much anticipated Bing Maps Beta service is up and running. As suspected, the new Bing Maps Beta relies on Silverlight 3. I just had a quick glance of it and thought of writing the about its striking new features.

» The new Silverlight interface of the Bing Maps Beta is downright awesome.

» The navigation/zoom-pan is smooth and the maps itself are much accurate than the current version of Bing Maps. [Why Bing Maps is not accurate?]

» Streetside [New Feature] – This is Bing’s answer to Google Maps’ Streetview.

» [New Feature] Photosynth content generated by its users is now integrated to Bing Maps Beta so that you can explore the 3D Photosynth pictures of the location.

» [New Feature] Traffic data helps you keep track of traffic congestion in your city.

» [New Feature] The round up of all the new features presented in Map Apps.

With lots of improvements, the Bing Maps looks amazing and shows the potential to stand out as a solid rival to Google Maps. It will be quite a while for the final version of new Bing Maps  to come out. Till then…explore the Bing Maps Beta.