Google Earth 4.3

When I was a kid, I loved all things geographical but was frustrated because globes, maps, and atlases went out of date rather quickly as borders were redrawn and countries came and went. Google Earth, which recently refreshed to version 4.3, keeps integrating new capabilities that a physical globe can't. The application, backed by data streamed from Google, lets you see almost any spot on Earth from space, then zoom in to view it—often to an amazing level of detail. Using the application provides an enjoyable, informative, and educational experience. It has plenty of practical uses, too. If you're planning a trip, for example, you can get a good feel for a place by exploring its terrain, resources, and attractions, and viewing related photos, text, and videos in Google Earth.

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When we first reviewed Google Earth, we gave it an Editors' Choice, which more recently it has shared with Microsoft Virtual Earth. Microsoft's app has more of a focus on local search and is integrated with Microsoft Live Search. Although Google Earth still has some minor but annoying problems with search and graphics and a tendency to crash, which caused us to downgrade its rating slightly, it's solid enough and has added enough new features to retain its Editors' Choice. The best thing is that both Google Earth (the basic version, which is all most people and businesses need) and Microsoft Virtual Earth are free, so you can use them to your heart's content.

As before, you must download an application (33.1MB) and install it, but to use Google Earth you have to be online, since it streams its data. The first thing users of previous versions will notice on installing version 4.3 are the new navigation controls on the upper right-hand edge of the 3D Viewer, which has a large pane through which you view the globe. They include a "Look Joystick" and a "Move Joystick (both four-way controllers), as well as the Zoom Slider. When you use the slider, you still zoom straight down from above, but now you level off automatically as you approach the ground. The Look Joystick lets you see in all directions from your current location. It incorporates the compass dial familiar to Google Earth veterans but also lets you tilt your view upward or downward. The Move control sends you in the direction of your choice, keeping your view pointed in its current direction, even if you're moving sideways or backward.

To compare, Microsoft Virtual Earth's controls are less conspicuous, but very functional, versatile, and intuitive. The program, which unlike Google Earth runs in a Web browser (though you have to download client software as well), also lets you switch among 2D and 3D views, such as the normal photographic view and one that shows roads and other features in a map-style view, a "bird's-eye view" of high-res images, and a traffic view in certain selected cities.

I didn't find Google Earth's new control scheme very intuitive. To figure it out, I had to read the instructions in the online User Manual. Once you get the hang of it, though, navigating becomes almost second nature, though some aspects remain confusing. The bottom of the 3D Viewer gives you three readings. The first, your latitude and longitude, is straightforward, but I was baffled by the difference between elevation and eye altitude until I saw it explained on the Google Earth Community bulletin board. Elevation refers to the distance above sea level of the land beneath your cursor, with oceans naturally at 0 feet—although Badwater, in Death Valley, which is as much as 282 feet below sea level, registers at 0 feet. Eye altitude is the height above sea level from which you look down on the world. Microsoft Virtual Earth correctly showed negative altitudes for places below sea level; apparently elevation readings in Google Earth don't go into negative territory.

The revamped navigation controls give you one way to travel around Google Earth's virtual globe, but you'll find a number of others. Your mouse works quite effectively, and you can also enter a location—country, city, or street address—in the Search pane's Fly to… field. The Places panel affords yet another way: In it, you can add placemarks of favorite locations that you've created using the pushpin icon above the 3D Viewer (be sure to save the favorites you want to keep). You can also import placemarks created by others. To take a grand tour of the world, click on Sightseeing, then press the Play button at the panel's lower right. You'll be transported to various natural, artistic, cultural, commercial, and political landmarks (my favorite is China's Forbidden City), ending up at the Google campus in Mountain View, California.

Street view, another new feature (which you access by clicking on certain camera icons when you've activated the Street view layer), shows panoramic photographs of selected locations at street level, allowing you to pan and zoom, à la Google Maps. To create Street view, Google had specially equipped cars drive through 40 cities and their suburbs, taking closely spaced 360-degree panoramas. The cities chosen were relatively large, so you won't find a single camera icon in Oshkosh or Ann Arbor, whereas Minneapolis has dozens.—Next: It's the Maps, Stupid