Danny Gorog17 April 2008, 2:09 PM
If you fancy a flight around the earth from the comfort of your operating system head on over to Google -- the latest version of Google Earth has some hot new features.
If you fancy a flight around the earth from the comfort of your
operating system head on over to Google and
download the latest version
of Google Earth.
Google Earth version 4.3
makes a great replacement for the old atlas your grandmother gave you
and really brings geography to life. Who knows, if Google Earth was
around when I was at school I might have even been a Geography major.
While
previous versions of Google Earth supported 3D views, version 4.3 takes
the feature to the next level on a number of fronts. Firstly, the
built-in zoom tools automatically change the view from birds-eye to 3D
as you move closer and closer to the earth, and secondly 3D models can
be 'photo-realistic'. As an example Google suggest you check out Tokyo,
Munich, or Boston. Graphics performance in this new release has also
been improved.
Google has also added a
feature that lets you watch sunrise and sunset anywhere in the world.
Simply hit the little 'sun' icon in the toolbar for a slider control
that lets you see the position of the sun, and the shadows it casts on
3D models during the day.
There's also a new 'Street View' feature that
is similar to the feature in Google Maps which actually gives you
street level images in certain locations by clicking on the camera icon. Plus, if you're zoomed in to the maximum you can now see
when the satellite image was snapped in some locations. This feature
didn't give me a result for my home but you might have better luck
depending on where you live.
Lastly, the new
version comes with support for 12 new languages which brings total
supported languages up to 26. That gives Google Earth global reach, and
at the sweet price of zero, it's another tool in Google's arsenal that's helping Google dominate the tech landscape.