The coolest free app in a long while...

[Sinistar]

Taking maps.google.com 20 steps forward is earth.google.com (http://earth.google.com). Finally, a great use for all those beefy GPUs. This app will entertain you for minutes but it will astound your friends and family for hours. Show them exactly why it is that you need to spend the big bucks and upgrade your video card every 3 months. Being able to play Battlefield 2 is simply a bonus feature. ;)

Check out NYC and then click "buildings". Sitting down in Washington Square while looking uptown is pretty awesome. Better yet, jump over to the Grand Canyon and flip your point of view. How long will it be before we have this in a handheld unit?

I realize that I may be a little behind the times with this posting, someone just pointed this out to me last week.

[Lodin]

I can see my house from there!

[Cupelix]

Too bad you can't download it at the moment. I saw a bit of this on a friend's computer the other day, and it certainly is very impressive. I'll be stalking the website trying to download it for awhile.

[netcraazzy]

It seems they are not allowing any more downloads of the utility.

[KarmaGhost]

Yeah, beta has been closed for a couple days now. Luckily I grabbed it before at work. However, the program logs you in, so installing on other machines (i.e. my home system with the far superior GPU) doesn't work as the servers aren't allowing any new users. Very cool ap, however.

[Wonka]

For those of you who managed to get a download: How is this different from that "World Wind" application that NASA released a few months back? In NASAs app. you could rotate the earth and then zoom in on any portion down to the point where you could see a house using sattelite imagery... It also had all the NASA resources, so you could see where Tornadoes were occurring etc.

Here is a link:
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/download.html

[Deadend]

googles has seach and nice functions.

Now if the controls were a bit better...

Do these things remind anyone else of the Earth progralm from Snow Crash?

[MosBen]

Yeah, World Wind is great, how is this different?

[Sinistar]

Try downloading it at night. After seeing the "downloads have been suspended" all day I was able download it when i visited after 9:00pm EST.

[Az Syndicate]

How long will it be before we have this in a handheld unit?

At the Freescale Tech Forum help last week, NVDIA had a presentation of a handheld running Keyhole (which is now this app). They were showing how much easier it would be to give/get directions base on the actual route to take. They also showed the map with an imposed line to signify the direction to travel, much like the first down line shown on TV during american football games, or the country flags in swimmer's lanes during the olympics. Great stuff for handhelds, phones, PDAs, in car navagation units.

[womp]

shouldn't non-gaming threads be posted in the forums?

[NACIONAL]

shouldn't non-gaming threads be posted in the forums?

this site is great because of this...

We can mix games with some other nice and interesting information... and it doesn't look bad...

[Kyle Jones]

I'd snag it but it seems that don't have toe bandwidth for all the downloads right now and took it down.

[bobbler]

This product has been around for a long time... It was previously known as Keyhole.

Google bought it and added a couple more things (like the ability to search addresses in google and such -- otherwise its nearly the same).

Great fun, regardless.

[Worldcrafter]

For those asking about the difference between this and World Wind, my impressions:

On the surface, this app is a lot like NASA's World Wind. But Google's app is geared more towards a 3D mapquest sort of interface. You can overlay roads, ask for directions, and see some cities in untextured 3D. I found it ran a lot smoother than World Wind.

In general I just had a feeling that NASA's tool seems like it was intended for us geeks, while Google's seems geared for future general consumer use.

[kathode]

The fly-through of driving directions is pretty damn cool

[Himsa II]

I want this, but what are the System Requirements. I dont wanta get it, and my comp explodes from too much info.

[rein]

Anyone have a mirror for it. It is down. :(

[KarmaGhost]

In regards to the comparison to World Wind, I've found the google app to be better. They serve different purposes, however; if you want to see the latest images of fires in India, WW is your proggy, but if you want directions and local searches, GE is your thing. GE seems to be a lot faster, but in some cases, the images are of a lower resolution (not "ugly" lower, just lower), but it really depends on what part of the country (world) you're looking at. The 3D buildings are pretty awesome, in my opinion and GE seems to have a better interface (no messing with topographical filters to get elevation data and the like).

Another cool feature of GE (carried over from Keyhole) is the ability for users to make Landmarks and information points on the map, by way of files posted on the program's forum. One thing I found of particular interest was a layout that someone made that covered the "Green Zone" in Baghdad, Iraq complete with borders and landmark names.

Himsa II, you'll probably be fine using GE, even if you don't have a decent machine. However, if you've got an older rig, you'll probably have difficulty with the 3D buildings.

[LilAbner]

Nothing like telling us how cool something is and then we can't get it. Yay!

[Zanzibar]

Nothing like telling us how cool something is and then we can't get it. Yay!

Give him a break, eh?

[smikwily]

May want to try a searching before giving up on finding a download. I found the file on a handful of sites fairly easily.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4659

[alienhead]

Google's sat maps are old. 3 years old. I looked up Soldier Field in Chicago and the pics were of it just getting built (the new one), circa 2002.

[bobbler]

Some of the pictures are from 2004, some from 2001 or earlier (it depends upon the area). The company that made Keyhole didn't have all the resources in the world to get the most updated pictures.

[Himsa II]

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
* Network speed: 128 kbps ("Broadband/Cable Internet")

[Himsa II]

May want to try a searching before giving up on finding a download. I found the file on a handful of sites fairly easily.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4659

TY :D 5678910

[bobbler]

Google Earth is downloadable again (from Google (http://earth.google.com/))

[commodus]

Man, that download was wicked fast! Transfer rate was like 2 Mb/s...crazy!