Google Releases Earth to Beta

Cros13 writes "Google has released a beta of it's Google Earth software to subscribers of the existing Keyhole service. New features include 3D models of buildings in selected cities, input from your gps receiver and a better search system. I have posted screenshots here and here." This product is in competition with Microsoft's Virtual Earth, as we reported earlier.

Comments

Indiana...

[Anonymous Coward]

looks a little boring

Re:Indiana...

[takeya]

Google Releases Earth to Beta

Great to see the final version is out!
Ba dum tsss

The Windypundit article

[metlin]

Why wasn't a link to the Windypundit article placed in the blurb?

It's just off the page and contains a lot more information.

hmm

[professorhojo]

i know all the words in that title, but i just can't parse that sentence.

Re:hmm

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

You watch Fox and CNN too much. Believe it or not, most everything can be used to commit any number of terrorist acts, but a vast majority of people just use these things for what they're intended to be used for. "X can be used for terrorism and therefore should be banned/watched/curtailed" is a recent invention of the current administration to justify pushing their agenda.

If you ban Google Earth on the ground, then also ban Hotmail (those terrorist email communications!), keyboard (they type the emails with 'em!!), batteries (they power the bombs they describe in the emails with 'em!!!), and nail clippers (they won't be able to make the bombs if their nails are too long). etc.

Stop being paranoid...

Re:hmm

[whitehatlurker]

i just can't parse that sentence.

Well, it's simple: "Google" released control of Earth (our planet) [all hail our Google overlords] to the planet Beta [all hail our new Betan overlords].

And in related news.

[rossdee]

Magrathea sues for copyright infringment.

Re:And in related news.

[Nos.]

I was going to be so clever and post a link to a google maps view of Norway and exclaiming how beautiful the Fjords were. That is until I scrolled east of NA, past the British isles, and found.... Alaska!

Re:And in related news.

[jusdisgi]

Try it clicked on the satelite view. That shows the whole earth, whereas the map view only has the U.S. and U.K.

Re:And in related news.

[kalidasa]

You should zoom in enough to see Slartibartfast's handiwork.

Earth Beta Release

[Sandbox Conspiracy]

So I've been living on the alpha version this entire time?

Re:Earth Beta Release

[nxtr]

Clearly. It's plauged by a malfunctioning thermostat that cycles every 10000 years. It's also got a random system crash that requires a total reboot. No one's sure when next one will hit but with a 65 million year uptime, we're due for one soon.

Re:Earth Beta Release

[Meostro]

...but with a 65 million year uptime...

Those 16-bit unsigned ints will be the death of us, literally! Y2K's got nothing on Y2^16 Millennia...

Re:Earth Beta Release

[Jesus_666]

What's more important, are there going to be separate servers for the different communities? From the problems between the "USA" and "Terrorist" clans we can clearly see that split servers might be a good idea... Also, I've heard rumours about the "USA" clan trying to explore an area, called "Mars", which so far isn't available for the players. Maybe that's the second server?

Too bad no one's heard anything from the developer for the last 2000 years. Talk about a bad information policy...

Obligatory humorous post.

[fm6]

Zonk, if you don't word your headlines more carefully, you're just begging people to make silly posts like this one: Earth is still in beta? After 3 billion years?

Re:Obligatory humorous post.

[Arctic Dragon]

"Earth is still in beta? After 3 billion years?"

Gmail will probably be a beta just as long.

Re:Obligatory humorous post.

[SlayerofGods]

Because there's still several billion bugs in the system :D

Re:Obligatory humorous post.

[FidelCatsro]

Wasps and ants are features not bugs

What would you use Keyhole / Google Earth for?

[Enigma_Man]

Other than the "wow neat" factor, and nifty interface, what are some actual uses/features in Keyhole/Google Earth that aren't covered by things like Google Maps.

-Jesse

Re:What would you use Keyhole / Google Earth for?

[tgd]

Planning terrorist operations, didn't you read the /. article about the government passing a law to make it easier to get your records from your ISP? They want to know who downloaded Google Earth, duh!

Re:What would you use Keyhole / Google Earth for?

[VAXcat]

I'm a pilot, and it's durned handy to be able to get a satellite eye's view of an airport I haven't been to before, so's I can pick out some landmarks. It's not that easy spotting a weedpatch airstrip from the air the first time over it, and the aerial photos in Keyhole help, especially the slant view feature.

Re:What would you use Keyhole / Google Earth for?

[Reverberant]

As an engineer, Google Earth (or in my case, more likely MS's Virtual Earth since MS has at least hinted at Mac compatibility via Firefox, while Google Earth seems to be Windows only), would be a godsend - I spend a lot of time looking over aerial photos to identify buildings (or 'sensitive receptors' as we call them in the noise biz) and the more detail we can get, the better we can make our estimates.

For example, having a clearer indication of building height or terrain features can help us create better sound propagation models that accounts for shielding or diffraction. Sure, GE/VE won't give us exact values, but every little bit helps. Topo maps help a bit, but if you've ever had to model an area with complex geometry (say San Fran or Seattle) topos become unwieldy pretty quickly.

We spend a lot of money right now sending people to certain project areas to help get a better sense of the terrain and building geometries. Having an fairly accurate 3D model of these features can save hundreds of thousands of dollars just in travel costs.

Re:What would you use Keyhole / Google Earth for?

[Jagasian]

Cue posts about possible uses for terrorism.

Re:What would you use Keyhole / Google Earth for?

[rsborg]

Other than the "wow neat" factor, and nifty interface, what are some actual uses/features in Keyhole/Google Earth that aren't covered by things like Google Maps.

• don't discount the "wow neat" factor... it's great at parties :-)
• Real Estate. I use it to look at open homes I am interested in, and to see if there are any things like trailer parks, railroads, cemetaries or other things nearby which might detract from the value/comfort of the potential location.

Well worth $29/yr.

Re:What would you use Keyhole / Google Earth for?

[Blue-Footed Boobie]

especially the slant view feature.

You racist clod!!

OR

Oh, so you fly into Japan a lot?

Re:What would you use Keyhole / Google Earth for?

[kouhoutek]

I signed up for Keyhole in January, and was a little bummed when Google Maps came out, thinking I had wasted my money.

Google Earth sure made up for it:

• Maps is plenty slick, but Earth's interface is still better if you want to have a look around an area
• you can take driving directions, and actually replay the whole route, isometrically, in 3D, looking down and where your car would be
• you get your custom push pins, so places of interest become a permanent fixtures to your application
• you have a greater variety of layers you can apply to your images
• you can display maps with any conceivable orientation, and can set the altitude of your POV
• GPS aware
• $29/year is cheap cheap cheap

And don't understimate wow neat. I was on a customer site, and the software I was training them on flaked out. I fired up Keyhole to look for a restuarant, "forgetting" my computer was still hooked to the projector. The class took the next hour or so looking for their houses, while I quietly worked the issue with support.

Re:What would you use Keyhole / Google Earth for?

[sho222]

I recently purchased a home long distance, and using Keyhole was just about the only way I can imagine doing something like that. Being able to get a bird's eye view of a potiential house, overlaying local light rail and subways (with correct colors for the lines no less), finding nearby restaurants and shops, viewing local crime stats, and creating custom "push pins" in a folder structure to track all of the homes were just some of the indispensable features present in Keyhole that Google Maps just didn't cover adequately.

As a Keyhole subscriber, I was given an upgrade to the Beta of Google Earth, and man... almost everything on my "wish list" that I made while using Keyhole is present in gEarth. I wish I had this when I was buying my house!

Re:What would you use Keyhole / Google Earth for?

[greenstork]

A friend and I were out hiking this weekend and thought about how nice it would have been to see a satellite topo image of our route ahead of time or even to be able to plan trips that way. We both conceded that it was just a matter of time, with the advent of Google Maps.

This type of program just confirms it. I think it would be tremendously useful although it seems like a stretch at this point, that it would feature actual trails. Mapping streets has been done but inputting trails and their exact elevations and routes seems trickier.

It's its not it's!

[ScentCone]

And somewhere on earth there's a special place for people who can't use the apostrophe correctly. Wish I knew where that was.

Of course "their" might have been a better choice anyway.

Re:It's its not it's!

[ScentCone]

The funny thing is that "it's" takes an extra keystroke and reflects a deliberate placement of a character. And that means that the typist thinks it should be there. I'm rarely one to bitch about typos here, and I've certainly made my share of them (no question!), but that sort of thing in the headline or summary is just sort of embarassing, and contributes to the further poor use of it by more monkey-see-monkey-do people. I mean, the apostrophe has a system! Slashdotters are all about systematic nuances, and certainly love to kvetch about things like code syntax... so, here's a bit of code that's continually misused. Let's kvetch, I say.

Re:It's its not it's!

[Shadow Wrought]

I used to live with an English major who did her darndest to help out my grammar skills and the like. "Its" and "It's" would always throw me. I'm pretty sure that you drop the apostrophe for possession, "Its Ryan's bike," and leave it there for the contraction "it is" (ie "It's Ryan's bike"). As you can see from my examples, however, it still confuses the hell out of me. So, since I figure half the time you need the apostrophe and half the time you don't, I make sure to throw the apostrophe in there about every other "It's." That way, overall, there is a roughly correct corrolation between the two.

Re:It's its not it's!

[codefrog]

I'd love to see a particular "it's" warning in the message-posting process. As in, when you submit your article or post containing that particular contraction, the system asks you if you know the difference between "it's" and "its" and if you're sure you used the right one. This particular user error is seen way, way too often around here and drags us all down.

Re:Slick!

[GweeDo]

You don't. You think adwords is the only way Google wants to make money?

Google's... Earth ?

[alexhs]

Since when does Earth belongs to Google ?

Moreover I'm worrying about Earth reaching release.
Everyone knows that vogons will destroy earth before it happens, so don't let that happen !

*StarCraft stimpack sound*

[KefabiMe]

Ah, that's better. My dosage of Google news. Now I can start my day!

Crazy Hoosiers...

[TylerL82]

http://photos11.flickr.com/16639588_c9da324958_o.j pg

Um...
Why does it look like Indiana isn't mapped?
There are lots of worse states out there...

Re:Crazy Hoosiers...

[Webs 101]

It is mapped. They've turned the whole state into an Indy car track/parking lot/amusement park.

Sorta like that NASCAR oval that used to be Dallas/Fort Worth and the Massachussetts Memorial Hockey Arena.

Re:Crazy Hoosiers...

[steve_bryan]

The reason Indiana looks like it does in the photo is that the entire state is mapped in high resolution. The same is true of Missouri, New Jersey and Massachusetts. In general the data sets vary in resolution for various places on Earth with large cities and even not so large cities in the US being shown in much greater detail. Before Keyhole was acquired by Google there tended to be an update about once a month with more places available in higher resolution.

It seems likely that essentially all of the Earth will be available in what we consider high resolution eventually. Anyone who has had an opportunity to use Google Earth would not ask why it is more useful than Google Maps. Being able to browse smoothly and effortlessly with personal bookmarks for repeated reference is the sort of thing that makes computers and broadband connections actually useful. For once the experience is meeting the challenge of our expectations.

Closed Minded

[mattmentecky]

As a Google user that is beyond you're planet, I take offense to the fact that Google *only* included EARTH in there initial release!

Re:Closed Minded

[AyeRoxor!]

As a Google user that is beyond you're planet,

Hi. Welcome to Earth. Please study up on our language. Earthlings who can't even manage a basic comprehension of their mother tongue are frequently ridiculed as idiots. We expect no less from "supreme species" such as yours.

Out the Windows

[Doc Ruby]

Wake me when they release one with a Total Perspective Vortex. I've got a fairycake craving.

Like Google Maps as a local application

[willith]

Take the functionality of Google Maps and make it into a local application, and that's what you get here. Instead of JAvascript-powered click-n-drag scrolling, it's OpenGL or Direct3D buttery-smooth, with texture filtering to ease some of the pixelation on the imagery.

The most amazing part is the driving directions--they're plotted out in front of you on the zoomable and scrollable earth, like Streets and Trips on steroids.

The ability to measure arbitrary lines and paths, carried over from the previous version of Keyhole, adds a nifty dimension. Instead of staring at a feature in the satellite imagery and wondering, "How big is that, anyway?", you can measure it and find out. I used it to definitively settle which of the two routes I can take home from work is shorter.

For $29, this app delivers, per dollar, more fun and utility combined than anything else I've ever purchased. You can use the layering features to do extremely useful stuff, like highlight the locations of ATMs, school district boundaries, golf courses, parks, show crime statistics, and even show placemarks set by people on the Keyhole web forum ("Look! I found a cool thing here!").

Sounds a bit like I'm babbling, but this thing is seriously hella-cool.

Re:Like Google Maps as a local application

[LWATCDR]

The question is when are they going to add a GPS link to this?
Just imagine how cool it would be to tell it what model and color of car you have and get a real time display of your car driving on the road:)
Okay this would best be used by your passenger/navigator.

Re:Like Google Maps as a local application

[jusdisgi]

For $29, this app delivers, per dollar, more fun and utility combined than anything else I've ever purchased.

I suggest you take a quick look at two products: beer and condoms.

Re:Like Google Maps as a local application

[telstar]

I suggest you take a quick look at two products: beer and condoms.

Dude, the guy just got excited over school district boundaries and ATM locations. Please don't encourage him to reproduce.

Re:Like Google Maps as a local application

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest you take a quick look at two products: beer and condoms.

Dude, the guy just got excited over school district boundaries and ATM locations. Please don't encourage him to reproduce.

Not real familiar with condoms, are we?

I can't wait for the final release

[lxs]

For the last 4.5bn years we have struggled with an alpha version of the Earth.

We can all remember Earth 0.1 , which was flat.

Earth 0.2 was spherical but still lodged in the center of the universe.

Earth 0.3 has served us well for over 200 years, but is still buggy as hell. The tectonics engine constantly crashes, causing massive earthquakes.

I have good hopes for the beta of Earth, but for the final release I, and many users like me would like a bigger planet.

Big Diffence

[joschm0]

This product is in competition with Microsoft's Virtual Earth, as we reported earlier.

Note: Google now has screenshots and Microsoft has only stated that MSN Virtual Earth service is to debut in the summer.

Re:Big Diffence

[Deviate_X]

MSN have more than a screenshot, they have video. And unlike the google keyhole (google earth), msn virtual earth runs on Linux and OSX!

Virtual Earth: MSN's answer to Google Maps

Next in Google Land..

[EvilStein]

They're going to launch a bunch of satellites that will take maps every so often.. probably with the same frequency that GoogleBot crawls the web. ;)

Now *that* would be pretty cool. Hey, Google is here in Mountain View.. and Moffett Field & Lockheed are right down the street, they could get some stuff goin' on with NASA...

Real time satellite imaging! Imagine being able to zoom in on a baseball game that's in progress. Suh-weeeeet!

Actually, I bet that the "topless beaches in France" would become an immensely popular search...

Well hell

[Anonymous Coward]

We didn't need Google to tell us that

I got a better one...

[alexandreracine]

Looking at this picture gave me some idears... So, how about putting all this data in a new game?
Behold! I present to you... (drum roll)

Grand Theft Auto : New York!

Humor note : Try our new live edition ;)

Beta

[jusdisgi]

Well, piss. I've only got a VHS deck.

Angry flower...

[AyeRoxor!]

Google has released a beta of it's Google Earth software[...]

Submitter, please read this important memo.

//Is this really one of the most difficult aspects of the written English language?

Nasa has one also

[thr2k]

Nasa has a pretty cool mapping program as well.
World Wind 1.3
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/

The servers are a little slow but its still a handy program.

Open Source

[gr8_phk]

For those wishing there was an open source equivalent, the flightgear simulator has worldwide scenery produced by the terragear project. Currently the terrain is based on the SRTM stuff from NASA, but I think there are some areas with higher resolution DEMs. Not sure, check it out. I'm also not sure how much geopolitical stuff or roads have been incorporated - their main purpose has been to feed the flight sim. Anyway, people interested a Free Software implementation have something to build on.

Oh, and the guy over at vterrain.org has some ambitious goals related to this type of thing too with lots of links to sources etc...

You're in luck!

[wirelessbuzzers]

I have good hopes for the beta of Earth, but for the final release I, and many users like me would like a bigger planet.

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Re:Error:

[jackcarter]

That's happened before; it took an incredible amount of time to do though (something like 40 days, I think).