New features added to Google Earth

Google has announced the first major updates to Google Earth since launching it a year ago.

The company said it has boosted the amount of high-resolution imagery it offers by four times, meaning that high-resolution imagery is now available for more than a third of the world's population.

The mapping service also now features a more streamlined user interface and new tools that let people create and display third party content.

Users can now see textured buildings, a move that Google said “brings a new level of realism and detail to Google Earth's 3D world”.

John Hanke, director, Google Earth and Maps. "In the past year, we have had more than 100 million unique Google Earth downloads and have enabled over 30,000 websites to create mash-ups combining their own geographic data with [our data].

To take advantage of the new features, users will need to download the new version from the Google Earth homepage.

Google Earth is available for Windows, Mac and, for the first time, Linux operating platforms; and is available in French, Italian, German and Spanish.

http://earth.google.com/