Introducing Google Earth 6—the next generation of realism
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Introducing Google Earth 6—the next generation of realism
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Re: Introducing Google Earth 6—the next generation of realism
#2Wow. They have trees now. I should watch out for them.
Re: Introducing Google Earth 6—the next generation of realism
#3They are using this as a vector to install Chrome.
That annoys some people, but at least the people most likely to be running IE 6 or 7 at home are also the ones most likely to remain co-opted-in to a Chrome download.
Re: Introducing Google Earth 6—the next generation of realism
#4Tangential to the conversation. So theoretically, Google will be able to count the number of trees in a given city right?
Re: Introducing Google Earth 6—the next generation of realism
#5It doesn't do a good job of using the available UI on the Mac at least…
• No pinch-zoom or rotate.
• The two finger panning motions don't work, the vertical portion having been repurposed as zoom.
…but the animation seems smoother and the more prominent date display at the bottom of the view should lead more people to the historical imagery.
The transition to street view is brilliantly done! Moving around in street view is, um, trippy. (Two-finger scroll forward and backward works here, lose all relation to reality if you turn your head with the keyboard. Rotate gestures do not work.)
Pretty spectral artifact at the Missouri Botanical Garden on the north side of the climatron for the current imagery.
Re: Introducing Google Earth 6—the next generation of realism
#6Tangential to the conversation. So theoretically, Google will be able to count the number of trees in a given city right?
I imagine that it would be a very rough estimate. In areas of dense tree coverage in parks or backyards Google probably just plants trees to cover the area since it would be nearly impossible to actually differentiate each individual tree in a canopied area. Trees that are out in the open, standing alone can obviously be counted, but trees in groups probably can't.
Re: Introducing Google Earth 6—the next generation of realism
#7They are using this as a vector to install Chrome. That annoys some people, but at least the people most likely to be running IE 6 or 7 at home are also the ones most likely to remain co-opted-in to a Chrome download.
I have my doubts that bundling a browser with other software will really convert those that don't know what a browser is.
They go online by clicking the blue 'e' icon on their desktop or start menu, as that's what they've always done. Adding another browser or changing the default browser doesn't change this behavior, and IE will ask the user to make it the default again as soon as they do.
Re: Introducing Google Earth 6—the next generation of realism
#8Tangential to the conversation. So theoretically, Google will be able to count the number of trees in a given city right?
Just a hunch: I suspect they're not auto-detecting the trees, but rather relying on (amazing) tools like
Re: Introducing Google Earth 6—the next generation of realism
#9[deleted]
Re: Introducing Google Earth 6—the next generation of realism
#10There is something about Google Earth that just doesn’t make it as fun to use as Maps. Maybe because Earth is a lot uglier than Maps? There are all those customization options but no sensible defaults and a very strange aesthetic, completely unlike what you see on the much more subtle and sophisticated Maps.
Navigation also feels somewhat broken. I often manage to get lost in Earth, that doesn’t happen to me on Maps. Is it the added degree of freedom? And now, Street View. It’s not really a joy to use on Maps, either, but it feels atrocious in Earth. It’s slow, it’s too blurry for too long, it just doesn’t feel right.
Earth has all those potentially great features but the UI feels like such a huge step back from Maps.