Introducing Google Earth

[Chris]

Late last night/early this morning, Google launched the highly anticipated full version of Google Earth, the search engine's stand-alone global map utility. The following is a detailed, blow-by-blow description of the launch provided by Nathan Weinberg.

The post appeared at his blog, InsideGoogle. Nathan was quite impressed with Google's newest device, and judging by his blog comments, so are others. With that, here's Nathan's account:

Google Earth Launches For Free
Nathan Weinberg | Contributing Writer

I heard a rumor that Google is about to officially release Google Earth, it's standalone Windows application that combines satellite imagery with Google Local and Google Maps. Best of all, my source says it is going to be completely free. However, this is purely a rumor, and while the source is reputable, the source is not entirely sure. I will officially stake nothing on this rumor, but smugly reserve the right to claim credit if it proves true. Then again, we'll know very soon enough.

UPDATE: Confirmed! Thank you, sir. I couldn't have beaten that article by more than ten minutes, but I'll take it.

UPDATE 2: So, now that we've got that out of the way, the details. Google Earth will be made available at earth.google.com shortly as a free download. In fact, its surprising it isn't there already. The subscription fee is gone, but a $20 fee will get you Google Earth Plus with more features and even more money will buy even bigger versions of the program.

The program lets you do smooth sailing flybyes of the entire Earth. You can easily fly to any spot on the globe, by entering any associated data, like street addresses, place names or lat/long coordinates. There are overlays that put additional information on the map, like roads, international boundaries, terrain, 3D buildings, crime statistics, schools, stadiums, any number of interesting stuff.

You can do Local searches in the program, with icons on the map and a display on the side showing your results. You can leave notes, called "placemarks" all over the map, so you can remember where all sorts of places are. Searches and placemarks can be saved as bookmarks in "My Places". Everything can be output in an XML format called KML, that will allow the vast popularity of Google Maps to continue in Earth. You can also email a JPEG of the map, or send a KMZ file if you know the recipient has Earth installed.
Google Earth Plus gives higher resolution images, GPS support, and more sophisticated annotation (like drawing on the map). Online help is available right here.

Screenshot mania!:

Editor's Note : (Due to length constraints, we've only included a couple of Nathan's images. He has quite a bit more and they can be seen at his blog. It's worth it to take a look if you are unsure about downloading Google's latest tool.

Here are Google Earth's 3D buildings:



Major highways:


UPDATE 3: The download is available now.

System requirements:

Minimum configuration:

-Operating system: Windows 2000, Windows XP
-CPU speed: Intel® Pentium® PIII 500 MHz
-System memory (RAM): 128MB
-200MB hard-disk space
-3D graphics card: 3D-capable video card with 16MB VRAM
-1024x768, 32-bit true color screen
-Network speed: 128 kbps ("Broadband/Cable Internet")

Recommended configuration:

-Operating system: Windows XP
-CPU speed: Intel® Pentium® P4 2.4GHz+ or AMD 2400xp+
-System memory (RAM): 512MB
-2GB hard-disk space
-3D graphics card: 3D-capable video card with 32MB VRAM or greater
-1280x1024, 32-bit true color screen</font>
-Network speed: 128 kbps ("Broadband/Cable Internet")

I had to download, save, and add ".exe" to the end of the install file, but that's probably because I'm doing all this as Google is uploading it. I'm sure they'll fix it, but just be aware of the issue. Also, Googlers, fix the typo on this page ("Googsle Earth") at the bottom.

Google has put together a Google Earth Sightseeing page with images of famous landmarks, and the KMZ files that will get you there.

UPDATE 4: Installed, and using it. Here are some screenshots (click to enlarge):



The Earth, baby!


For more of Nathan's Google Earth screenshots, go here


UPDATE 5: Final update. I cannot contain how impressed I am with Google Earth. Absolutely, this is a great release. The feeling you get when you double-click on an area and the map glides over, falling into the Earth, with place names and street grids revealing themselves, is stunning and jaw-dropping

Sure, there are things that pissed me off, like it completely sucking at finding residential street addresses, that the satellite maps are one level too blurry to 100% identify any house, and that the road maps are harder to follow than those in Google Maps. All that went away, when Google Earth flew me into my neighborhood, and I started putting placemarks on my bedroom and on the homes of some of my friends. Then, I set up a tour of those locations, and marveled as I was, indeed, taken on an aerial tour of my ‘hood. All the while, street names fluttered in and out as necessary, and most of the stores on Main Street (yes, we have a Main Street in New York, or at least in Queens) had nice labels that appeared on some zoom levels.

Then I turned on the overlays. Now I know how many murders were in Queens in 2000 (187), the population (2229379) (even if the overlay icons were on top of each other, forcing me to shut one off to see the other), see all the pharmacies, gas stations, restuarants, libraries, parking lots, hospitals, banks, airports, fire stations, parks, stadiums, golf courses, churches, trains, movie rental stores, malls, bars, and highway exits in the area, and find out where my ZIP code congressional or school district ends.

Unbelievable. Amazing, absolutely amazing. You will be showing this off to your friends. I'm probably coming off as a little too excited, true, but I just genuinely enjoy using this product. Google did good with this one, and Keyhole did a great job. Bravo!

Reader Comments...

[eggypiece]

Incredible application...specially for free. Not much resolution for the free program, but I imagine the plus program will give you a better view. Having worked with military related satellite imagery, this is indeed a nice and fun to have application...and it is free...at least for now!

[tony]

Yeah, I just took it for a spin... It downloaded quite fast.
I was actually able to see my family home in Australia.
Thats a trip...!
Although when I typed the town into the search engine it gave me a "no result" but as I zoomed in it was able to locate it.
Lets hope it stays free...and continues to update.
Good Work

[ctabuk]

Cool, Cool and double cool

[simonm]

Great! Its just that I can only see some of the overlays. I think they are overlaying in black. No terrain visible. I'll try on my home machine tonight.

[The Generator]

Generator sez,

I've seen this product a few months ago when my adwords rep stopped by for a visit. It's breathtaking in sofar as you can view buildings and houses in detail. However, their network didn't seem complete for all regoins and countries.

[kgun]

1. The next will be, as I posted another place, real time pictures (infrared in the nights?).

2. Combine it with Microsoft Flight / Space Ship simulator.


KBleivik
http://www.multifinansit.no/
http://www.dinnettbutikk.no/
http://multifinanceit.com/

[Paul B]

Is it because it's the free version I get some darker rectangles in all countries? These darker areas have far greater detail than areas outside them. Sadly there are far fewer darker rectangles than fuzzy places.

Fly to Zurich and take a look...

[jawn_tech]

YES!!!! Bring on the 21st century!

I'm awestruck, I wasn't expecting this at all. Quick installation. My hometown doesn't get much below 30,000 feet, but just cruising around the world, it's nothing short of amazing. Famous landmarks are on here. Try this, enable 3D buildings and try the tilt feature. The picture above doesn't do it justice. Pan around, rotate, fly in and out. Oh my heavens. I'm drooling over this thing.

Alas, the other shoe drops from the famous Keyhole purchase. I knew it would be big.

[Artyom]

Guys, it is SOMETHING!!!! I could actually see the house I was back at august 99, my second cousin house. One thing I couldn't see was him:-)) Perhaps he was hiding just like terrorists do when they know that a sattelite flys over and make photos:-)

Btw, does anybody experience 'can't connect server' errors? I don't have any problems at the office at work with ISDN, but I do have at home with my dialup:-( And it's not about firewall cause I turned it off and it didn't help. Yesterday I saw that they temporary shut down the program downloading and perhaps that was the reason for that error.

[yowow]

How did you download this software????
Thanks for your interest in Google Earth, but we're sorry we can't offer you a download right now. As you know, Google Earth is in beta, and we're still building out our ability to take on new users. We're making good progress, and expect to be able to accept new downloads shortly, so we recommend you check back daily at earth.google.com. We hope to be able to welcome you and other new planet surfers soon.

We appreciate your patience,

The Google Earth Team

[jawn_tech]

Yowow, that is a new development. The download page must have been changed only within the last 12 hours. That page was fully functional 12 hours ago.

It truly must be a temporary glitch. Perhaps they weren't prepared for as many download requests as they received, or a server glitch.

[kgun]

Scroll down to the heading

"Search and AD" along the left edge of my index page on the international site of MultiFinansIT.

Some of the last links under that heading (just above the launch your site banner) have links to related services, that not all of you may be aware of.

The first link is esri, used in Norway on the last road (bridge) project connecting Norway and Sweden.

KBleivik
http://multifinanceit.com/

[caleigh25]

I received this message when trying to install Google Earth:

Note: Free trials of Google Earth Plus are no longer available.

[simonm]

Being British (Norwegian, Ukrainian or living in Dark Shadowy corners see above) does have its advantages! Google Earth was up and open right through until America started waking up. By the time I got home from work the download was unavailable!

[ReviewGolf.com]

As always, whoever gets more money gets the most fame.

Keyhole has been doing this for years, but it takes Google to buy all publicity and here we go --Google's Highly Anticipated...

[dwight_stegall]

Myself and millions of others can't use the new Google Earth. We access the web through public library computers (me), schools, universities, kiosks etc.

I'm sure we all would like to see this put online instead of a downloadable application that we can't use.