If this level of detail was in Google Earth there would be a flood of posts on the web praising the next step in virtual globes, yet as its Microsoft the reception seems strangely muted.

This is true, but at the same time I still don’t feel compelled to reboot into Windows to take a look myself, and when I examine why that might be the case, I come up with this reason: Until 3D buildings allow placemarks to be pasted onto their facades with the requisite metadata, we’re just dealing with (very pretty) eye candy. In other words, this kind of improvement doesn’t ameliorate my search experience, even though it undeniably makes for a more impressive and realistic view.