Google Earth Now Available Through Your Browser - No Download Necessary!   - 9,889 Views, 3 Comments

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At their I/O developer event, held in San Francisco’s Moscone Center this month, Google unveiled two exciting enhancements to Google Earth. The first is a Google Earth plug-in enabling you to fly anywhere on Earth, viewing content in your browser (as long as it’s Internet Explorer or Firefox, and on Windows. Other platforms will be supported in a later release.) This mirrors the functionality that used to require downloading and installing a desktop application. The second item released is a Javascript Google Earth API that enables developers to control the plug-in, add Google Maps and KML data and features, and to interface with other Web applications.

Expect to see a wave of Google Earth-enabled Web applications very soon, as developers embed not just the plug-in, but link it with other available geo-based data, and make available in your browser full 3D-rendered views. For developers who have already incorporated Google Maps into their web sites, building mash-ups that add Google Earth 3D views requires the addition of a single line of code.

As the Google LatLong blog author writes, “Our goal is to open up the entire core of Google Earth to developers in the hopes that you’ll build the next great geo-based 3D application, and change how we view the world.”

How exciting! Until these new applications become available, you can see several Google-authored examples (for which you need to be running IE or Firefox, on Windows), and if you’re feeling adventurous (or silly), you can play Monster Milktruck! a game where you drive a truck around Google Earth, in several locations round the world.

Download the Google Earth Plug-in here.

Google Earth Now Available Through Your Browser - No Download Necessary!

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