Moldy Peaches

Microsoft's new Web service for satellite photographs may have found a way to physically eliminate the competition. No, the Redmond, Washington based company did not hire Tony Soprano and the gang to make Steve Jobs swim with fish, however, the world's largest software company did find a way to wipe Apple Computer off the map.

Users of Microsoft's new "Virtual Earth" have discovered that anyone using the website for a bird's-eye view of Apple's corporate headquarters sees only a grainy overhead photograph of what appears to be a single, nondescript warehouse and a deserted parking lot — not Apple's sprawling campus, with 11 modern buildings surrounding a plush courtyard.

Microsoft blames an outdated photograph. But Apple's headquarters in Silicon Valley shows up more appropriately for anyone viewing the same location using Google's mapping Web site, which also combines many of the same government-financed satellite and aerial overhead photographs.

Microsoft says its new mapping service, made available free during the weekend, is still in its testing phase and includes some older, black-and-white photographs from October 1991 for the neighborhood around Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. The only dates displayed on the images are copyright notices from 2004 and 2005.