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Google Launches Earth VR For Free On HTC Vive (roadtovr.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Google today revealed Earth VR, a virtual-reality version of the company's famous Google Earth program that's built for the HTC Vive. The application packs the rich Google Earth dataset -- which includes high resolution satellite imagery, elevation data, and detailed 3D modeled cities and landscapes -- into a single model of the planet which users can view all the way from space down to the ground, walking among cities like a giant. The company tells Road to VR that "Earth VR is a product, not a demo," and that it's designed to benefit from improvements in the Earth dataset over time automatically, and it will see regular updates post launch. You can download Google Earth VR for the HTC Vive via Steam.
Pretty freakin' awesome.
Flying over places like Manhaattan, the Fukushima power plant, Gibraltar, et cetera.
Looking up places you lived when you were a kid.
Humming the theme music to the first Superman movie... ...or maybe that was just me.
...of course if you can really stride like a giant through real cities it clearly needs a Godzilla mode add-on where you get to defend the city by fighting off some equally implausible giant monster.
Meaningful, unique content -- something more than just a tech demo or a standard video game where, at the last minute, someone said "oh and it has VR! kinda...".
That's why this is so exciting.