Microsoft is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build a 3-D replication of the world that would become the platform for data overlays to provide people with useful information.

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) are intensely focused on building 3-D maps of the world and adding social elements on top of their mapping services, executives said Friday at the Web 2.0 Summit.During a panel discussion at the San Francisco conference, Erik Jorgensen, general manager of Live Search at Microsoft, said the software maker is spending “hundreds of millions of dollars” to build a 3-D replication of the world that would become the platform for data overlays to provide people with useful information on geographical locations.

Microsoft this week launched an upgrade of its Live Search service, which offers through the Virtual Earth platform 3-D imagery of nearly 200 U.S. cities and other areas covering 80% of the nation’s population. As part of the upgrade, people using Live Search Maps can create and share their own 3-D models of buildings through an alliance with Dassault Systemes.

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