New Google Earth, Version 4

[pyost 0]

One of the most popular Google programs, and maybe one of the most dangerous, Google Earth, is getting a new version. What's more, this time it is released for all supported operating system simultaneously. You can download it here.

 

Besides various OS support, it is also multilingual with French, German, Spanish and Italian now supported. Also, these countries are now more detailed in Google Earth and advanced search is now available.

 

Next, Google has increased the percentage of the land covered with high resolution images. It is now 20%, whereas the other 80% aren't that high quality. According to Google Blog, it is very detailed.

 

When we say "high resolution," we mean the good stuff: you can see cars, houses, buildings in more than 200 countries and territories. Not every house is covered, only about two billion of them. That's our best estimate, anyway Ăâ that about 1/3 of the population of the Earth can now see their homes in high-resolution. Google Earth has had medium resolution global satellite coverage since the beginning. But that was at 15 meters per pixel. This new global coverage was produced in conjunction with our exclusive satellite partner, Digital Globe, and is at approximately 70 cm per pixel. We have even better data for many countries, up to 10 cm per pixel.

 

And the reason for all these improvements is actually quite simple. Google Earth is soon celebrating it's one year of existence!

 

For more details, visit Google Earth.

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

Wohooooooooo.. downloaded and installed. The CONTROLS got thousandfold better. Instead of having a thick ugly control panel occupying most of the lower half of your screen - now the image of the earth occupies the whole right panel. The controls (left, right, up, down arrows and zoom) - are transparent and floating in the upper right corner - in a totally unobstrusive manner. WAY TO GO In fact, the control buttons appear only on mouse-hover.. other times you just see a small circle indicating the axial tilt of earth. On mouse hover the directional buttons pop-up surrounded by a circular scale which you can drag around both ways to change the axial tilt. So totally cool

[minnieadkins 0]

Hopefully soon the images will be higher resolution over the areas where I live. I thought it was interesting to see all the features this app offers. I'll definately give v. 4 a look but it's still in beta. Hopefully they added areas I want to see.

[szupie 0]

Yeah, I like the new controls much better too. Google Earth's interface didn't look like a Google product before, with all the ugly gray buttons. It's not perfect yet, but it's much better.When I learned about this release, most of the articles had mentioned its new 3d textured buildings as the most significant update. It's weird that none of you mentioned that here. Anyway, although the new textured buildings look really cool in the screenshots (on Google Earth's hompage), when I downloaded the new version, I found that I have to download seperate KML files in order to see them. I was really disappointed in that. They should consider integrating a default set of textured buildings into Google Earth (I think many models of buildings have already been made by SketchUp users). I haven't been able to find such building packs, and it's such a hassle to have to manually find models of the buildings and download them one by one.

[Hercco 0]

What's the catch with Google Earth? I just downloaded and installed the beta version and it did ask for adding some google functionality to IE and allowed me not to send userstatistics (different thing is what it actually does, but at least they asked). Are they trying to get you eventually to pay for a more extensive version? Or is there some ads on the map? What's the point of giving such service free?

[pyost 0]

Are they trying to get you eventually to pay for a more extensive version? Or is there some ads on the map? What's the point of giving such service free?

Well, what's the point of giving anything free? Google is well-known for its free services, and I doubt it will change that policy. I believe NASA has a similar piece of software like Google Earth, but it much bigger (maybe 100MB, not sure) and therefore it's not practical. Everything that Google offers only attracts users - and that's what they need.

[pawitp 0]

They have plus and pro version that I have never looked into, but they now support linux and that's excellent! It worked flawlessly under ubuntu linux and probably alot of other distros. It's programmed under QT and I'm quite sure it doesn't use wine like piasca. I didn't crash on me yet. Google really know how to make the users happy!

[finaldesign1405241487 0]

Well, what's the point of giving anything free? Google is well-known for its free services, and I doubt it will change that policy. I believe NASA has a similar piece of software like Google Earth, but it much bigger (maybe 100MB, not sure) and therefore it's not practical. Everything that Google offers only attracts users - and that's what they need.

Yes, Nasa have similar program, It's called WorldWind if im not mistaken... I've tried it some time ago, it's pretty good, but as you said, it is pretty big, and resource intesive: on my duron overclocked to 2ghz and geforce mx460 program crashed the computer few times. Edited June 14, 2006 by finaldesign (see edit history)

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

I'm downloading it here but I'm running on a server box with a nearly non-existent vid card so this'll probably be a futile attempt, I'll have to check it out at home I hope either my current residence or my parents home is now in higher res images... before you could barely make out either because we live in the middle of nowhere haha. *runs off to try it*

[nightfox1405241487 0]

Sounds like I must download!!! Hehe.... I've used the older versions when it first came out. It was pretty cool... time to try this version out!! hehe... I love google[N]F

[austiniskoge 0]

Google sure knows how to get its billions...

 

Of hits, that is.

 

I don't think it's much more than a toy, though. Yeah, it's fun to play with, to check out, but it's not really a practical tool. Oh well, it's fun to mess around on.

 

I'll just stick to my favorite Google invention, Gmail.

[XIII 0]

Google sure knows how to get its billions...

 

Of hits, that is.

 

I don't think it's much more than a toy, though. Yeah, it's fun to play with, to check out, but it's not really a practical tool. Oh well, it's fun to mess around on.

 

I'll just stick to my favorite Google invention, Gmail.

 

It's not just a toy, it's a great tool that once saved me when i was in need for a map to get outta mountain roads here, it was very helpfull, i like it, though i think it's so dangerous if it is to be used by evil-makers those who push us to hell, i hope they could control its usage soon.

Google Rocks!!!

[austiniskoge 0]

Well, okay. I can see the limited practicality. However, the only real innovation of Google Earth over other services like MapQuest is the high-res photos. Sure, that's nice but it doesn't make a giant difference...I still don't think it's revolutionary. Nice, sure. Google's great in my opinion. It's just not the new sliced bread.

[szupie 0]

There was also another new feature in this version. Well, actually, I'm not really sure whether it's a new thing or I just haven't noticed it before. It's the ruler tool, accessible from the new (again, not sure if it's new) toolbar. If you want to know the area of some building or your new house and you can't find the information online, you can use the ruler tool to measure out all the details you want. That's the only practical use for Google Earth that I can think of. If you want to find directions, you can simply use Google Maps instead. There are some nice features in Google Earth Plus and Pro for businesses, so I think Google Earth (Free) is just a product to attract people to buy the other versions.

[iGuest 3]

download

New Google Earth, Version 4

 

How I can download the googleearth

 

-reply by ramesh