Bing Maps Preview showcases new mapping experience 'built from the ground up' for Windows 8.1

Microsoft's been busy overhauling its Bing Maps experience for Windows 8.1 and, today, the Redmond giant's posted an app preview to its Windows Store. Users running that latest OS build can download the Bing Maps Preview to check out the sweeping, hi-res imagery, from satellite to street view, of our world. It's the Bing version of Google Earth, and it's just a taste of "what's to come" as Microsoft is only making 70 cities available for view in the preview.

But all those petabytes of data aren't just for show, the new Bing Maps is designed to dynamically adapt to your orientation, with overlays for information on landmarks, businesses and other places of interest. Microsoft's even built in what it's calling "bubble view," which allows users to get a street view preview while remaining zoomed out on the map. This being Bing, search and Skype (enabled via Snapview) are both integrated into the app, so you can look up and make calls to highlighted addresses, as well as map out directions to destinations. The preview's live now, so you can hit up the source to get a first look at this new Bingified world.