Google Earth 6.2 includes integration with Google+, allowing users to share Earth imagery with their social network Circles. Also, the images are seamless and more easily searchable.
Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) continued its
wholesale integration of Google+ with its existing applications, launching
Google Earth 6.2 with the capability to let users share their virtual images
with their contacts on the social network.
Google Earth 6.2 includes the option to
let users share a screenshot of their current Google Earth image, as well as
images of places they've already "virtually traveled" with contacts
in their Circles.
To share images of cities, oceans and
other location to Google+ followers, users must sign into their Google account
in the upper right hand corner of Google Earth and click the Share option.
The ability to share to Google+ from
Google Earth follows a trend the company has been exacting since launching Google+
last June.
Google wants to make Google+ the
unifying thread across all of its products. Naturally, the easiest way to
ensure this is to enable users to share information they create across Gmail,
search and YouTube via Google+. Google has done just that, and Earth is the
latest to get this capability.
Earth 6.2 is notable for a couple of
other changes in the software's design.
Google Earth comprises various
satellite and aerial photographs taken on different dates (and under different
lighting and weather conditions), which is why the high-altitude views in Earth
resemble patchwork quilts.
To make imagery more seamless, Google
has used a new rendering technology that sheds the virtual boundaries between
each service and "smoothes out this quilt of images," according to
Google Earth Product Manager Peter Birch. See Google's before and after images of the Grand Canyon and
Sri Lanka that use the new technology.
This change affects both the mobile and
desktop versions of Google Earth.
Finally, Google Earth searchers will
enjoy a more streamlined search panel that includes search layers that show
more relevant results, as well as the same auto-complete feature employed in
Google Maps.
Google also now supplies biking,
transit and walking directions for Earth to enable virtual travelers to see
their options in case they want to one day physically travel in the location
they're viewing in the application.
Email
Print
