Micro-soft Streets & Trips

[BobGed]

Here are a couple of comments posted in 2012 by Larry Peterson one of the software engineers at Microsoft:

REDMOND, Wash., July 17 -- Nobody wants to spend more money than necessary to fill the gas tank, and drivers want to get the most out of each gallon. Making efficient, customized travel plans is now easier than ever with today's launch of Microsoft Streets & Trips 2013, the new edition of the popular trip-planning software.

Current users of Streets & Trips will find the new 2013 version offers a sleek and clean look in high contrast designed for easier viewing, updated maps of the United States and Canada -- including 150,000 new miles of roads since the 2011 version was released -- and more than 2.5 million points of interest. Longtime fans will also find they can now turn all pushpin names on or off with a single click, and they can create larger drive times for more flexibility in trip planning.

"A new feature people are really going to love is the online ratings and reviews. Customer ratings and reviews on restaurants, hotels and more take the guesswork out of deciding where to go," said Larry Petersen, software design engineer at Microsoft Corp. "Streets & Trips 2013 adds upgrades our customers have asked for, including 600,000 more points of interest than the previous version."

"The majority of the built-in POI data comes from NAVTEQ and Woodalls (for campgrounds). This year the built-in POI have been scrubbed. Obsolete/closed/moved/wrong locations have been removed from the database and new updated locations have been added. The NET gain over last year is 600K additional POI.

None of the POI Megafile collections have been included as they contain freely shared pushpin collections which are updated regularly and need to be kept free"