To read this article in its entirety, please visit eWeek: Microsoft Adds Taxi Fare Calculator, OpenStreetMap, Color

Microsoft has integrated a handful of new features into Bing Maps, in yet another salvo in the application’s long-running battle with Google Maps. The additions include a Taxi Fare Calculator and a World of Football app that displays soccer scores from around the world and zooms into stadiums. In addition, Bing Maps is now rendered more colorfully, with dynamic information that pops up whenever the mouse hovers over a particular location.

The more colorful and detailed maps are accessible only by downloading the latest version of Silverlight. That newfound color and shading includes “de-saturation on zoom [that] allows more continuous transition to photographic material” and “lower cognitive load—less data/clearer details,” according to an Aug. 3 posting on the Bing Community blog. In addition, the updated maps improve street detail in several international territories, including Central & Eastern Europe and Asia.

“The Silverlight experience has a combination of both raster tiles and vector graphics rendered in the browser at run time,” explains the blog posting, as a highly technological way of saying that Bing Maps now looks a lot prettier.

Bing Maps also feature a handful of new apps. By opening the “Map Apps” tab on the bottom-left of the Bing Maps screen, and clicking on OpenStreetMap, users can access an open-source project that leverages crowd-sourcing to build geographical data into maps. Other new apps, including Taxi Fare Calculator, World of Football, and a map of Microsoft’s Regional Directors, are also accessible through that tab.