I've got the whooooole world, in my Mac! (earth.google.com)

Member Name: Escorcio

Product:	earth.google.com
Date:	02/10/09 (26 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great 3D high resolution images with some cool hidden features

Disadvantages: Images can take a while to load with a slow connection and not all places are in great detail

Google Earth is a great free application that utilises the latest satellite imagery to produce a 3D virtual world.

The application itself is quite light as it uses the internet to stream the images rather than downloaded the whole virtual globe to your desktop. This makes it quite quick to download and install, and doesn't take up too much space on your hard drive.

The interface of Google Earth is very simple and fairly easy to use. You can freely navigate around the globe, zooming in and out, or using the search tool you can quickly find a specific location on the map. Similar to the search on Google Map you can enter Countries, Cities or even Post Codes to find your location and the map will automatically scroll and zoom to your desired place. This happens relatively quickly but can take a while for the images to completely render.

There's also a lot of handy features packed into Google Earth which are great for both navigational, educational and leisure purposes. Longitude and Latitude are displayed where ever you point the cursor so you can quickly make reference points. You can also drop label/bookmarks in places to add a note or location you know. The coolest features are actually hidden, for instance the "easter egg" of a flight simulator allows you to fly across the map and navigate from this view.

The quality of Google Earth itself is great, images are extremely high quality with so much detail in all major cities. This does mean that the more you zoom in the longer it takes to load.

Another problem I have with Google Earth is that the map is great for major places but when you want to explore smaller islands for instance, the zoom just doesn't go far enough before you get the grey "unavailable" pixels, hopefully they will get new imagery of these areas in the future.

Overall Google Earth is a great piece of software and has a lot of potential for use in other applications and websites. It's definitely worth a quick try even if just for the novelty.

Summary: A cool application that is fun to explore every now and again