Earlier this week, Al Gore, Jimmy Buffet, and a famous oceanographer came together to announce a Google Earth update.  Don’t look for the same level of hubbub here, but Microsoft’s now taking its own impressive step in this area by releasing about 100 terabytes’ worth of Virtual Earth imagery.

The full list of everything that’s been made available is really too long to repeat; several different types of images are circulating, plus multiple cities and counties have been covered in many countries.  We’ll hit the highlights, though, to give you an idea.

 Microsoft Virtual Earth

Virtual Earth users can now look for bird’s eye (oblique) views of Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.  Or, if anyone feels like exploring a place other than America, there’s more to see in France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Next, Microsoft’s released some high resolution orthos shots of California, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, and New Jersey, and Texas, along with Great Britain, Greece, Japan, Norway, Portual, Scotland, and Spain.

Finally, there are satellite images of Albania, Bosnia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, India, Lithuania, Moldova, Mexico, Montenegro, Panama, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, Turkey, and Ukraine.

Told you the list was long, eh?  And odds are good that, even without a big unveiling, Microsoft just made itself a lot of friends.