The Where 2.0 conference is providing a platform for a large number of significant announcements from geo-software developers. The release of the Google Earth 4 beta is particularly interesting with its radically altered navigation interface, as the screenshot below shows. There is far more space on the screen than before, and on a high resolution monitor, the effects are quite stunning. The other obvious changes affect the Layers and My Places panels which have been redesigned to improve usability.
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So, should you upgrade? The new version is definitely buggy. Many people, including myself, have noticed a dramatic slow-down in performance. I also found that multiple overlays don’t display properly, flashing on and off intermittently. I see that the recommended specifications for version 4 are far more demanding than previous versions, and my own PC is stretched. Deleting cache files and twiddling around in the Options has not resulted in any improvements, so I’ll shortly be uninstalling and returning to the old version. Coinciding with the release of Google Earth 4 is a massive upgrade to the imagery database. Google claim that 20% of the world’s dwellings are now visible in high resolution, although I can confirm my house is not amongst them!
According to Google Earth blog, the new version of Picasa allows you to geotag photos using Google Earth. I can’t comment, since I don’t have the required GMail account to sign up for the service.
Finally, and in my opinion, probably the most exciting news, is that KML files are now directly viewable in Google Maps. This is fantastic news for all those teachers who have been unable, for whatever reason, to use Google Earth in their classrooms. (Flash Earth is the obvious solution) but now, the thousands of KML files available through the Google Community can be utilized without the need for Google Earth. Have a look at this yourself. Load up Google Maps and select a KML file. An example could be my Nile Tour. Right click on this link to save the location of the Nile Tour kml file, and paste it into Google Maps search box to see the results, which should be similar to the image below!
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Hi Noel,
I’m getting the flashing thing with the new beta of Google Earth as well - I thought it was either just my machine or unsupported images. I’m thinking of going back to version 3 for the time being as I was happy with its performance and don’t really need the functionality of v.4 (at the moment!)
PS I’ve sent you an invite to GMail so you can try out the new features of Picasa!