Tuesday, 13 June 2006

Google Earth v4 with Linux Support

"Google Earth has been downloaded over 100 Million times since it was release a year ago", said John Hanke, general manager of Google Earth at the Google Geo Developer Day in Mountain View, California. A new version of Google Earth has also been released, featuring 3D textured buildings, UI updates, improved internationalization. Linux and Mac users will be thrilled to discover the new version of GE is now available for their platforms. First, a universal binary for Mac OS X (good for both Intiel and PowerPC versions of the Mac), And a binary for the Linux platform (ported and tested on several variations) is now available (which follows the release by Google of Picasa last month).

Michael Jones, CTO of Google Earth, demoed the new version of Google Earth. "It is really amazing! Also, they have native language versions of GE available for several other languages. There are amazing new features for image overlays which will let all kinds of image overlays to be displayed very efficieintly. We could even have new layers of alternate reality views of the Earth (Google Earth may yet become the Metaverse!)", says Frank Taylor.

Chris Pirillo is however unimpressed with the new release. "It’s out, but I’m very sad to report that the new version of Google Earth is still calling on Arial as the default Window UI font (not the internal 3D mapping font, which is fine). Why do developers insist on using this instead of Tahoma (or Segoe UI, in the case of Windows Vista)?! Sorry, Google - if this is your first beta of v4.0, you’re already failing miserably in my book."

Download the new Google Earth V4 (beta) here.