Google Earth Release 4 - BETA

The latest version of Google Earth is being released in beta form. We've added several new features that will make your Earth browsing even better.

The most obvious change is a new and, we think, simpler user interface.

We've reorganized the data layers to make it easier to find layers and turn them on and off. The nav panel at the bottom of the screen is gone, freeing up more real estate for actual imagery. The nav panel tools are still accessible, though; the nav controllers are now in the upper right and the tools (measure, print, email) are in the new tools bar along the top.

Free Feel To Change Your World
Seeing buildings in 3D is one of the coolest things about Google Earth. And with this release, this feature is even better. For the first time, we support "textured" 3D buildings, meaning the bricks look like real bricks, the glass like real glass, and overall, the world looks more like, well, the real world. It's just one more step on the path of creating a life-like 3D model of the whole planet. There's just one catch - there aren't many photorealistic 3D building models out there. Yet. That's where Google Sketchup comes in.

Creating and Sharing Geographic Information – A New Type Of KML
The best thing Google Earth's got going for it is the creativity of the millions of users who are adding and sharing geographic information. And with Google Earth (Release 4 BETA), we've expanded that capability in “KML,†the file format Google Earth uses to add and share data.

One of the reasons that Google Earth is so fast is that when you're flying around, you're only streaming in the pieces of the imagery that you need. But until now, importing KML meant loading everything – it was either all on or all off. This meant that loading, for instance, the topographic maps for all of Yosemite would grind Google Earth to a halt. For this new release, we've built the same smart loading techniques into KML, which means you can overlay large data sets without sacrificing performance.

Additional Features:


* We've released versions of Google Earth in French, Italian, German, and Spanish.
* We've made improvements to our GPS support (Google Earth Plus only)
* We've improved the terrain, so peaks and valleys are more realistic

Source
Download Google 4 Beta: http://dl.google.com/earth/GE4/GoogleEarthWin.exe
 
Doesn't spell what the system specs needed are. I've GE 3 & its reqs. listed on the release notes are :-

Minimum Configuration

---------------------

- Windows 2000, or XP

- Pentium 3, 500Mhz

- 128M RAM

- 400MB disk space

- Network speed: 128Kbits/sec

- 3D-capable video card with 16Mbytes of VRAM

- 1024x768, "16-bit High Color" screen

& it works sufficiently well with my rig at the moment.
 
^^Eh :S It does mention the system specs. afaik it was something like

2 Ghz CPU

512 MB RAM

2 GB free HDD space

768 kb/s speed

32 MB card

32 bit color
 
I meat when u post stuff. It makes sense to put the minimum config. needed so people do know do they've the req. or not. In this case not :(
 
Version 4 beta now supports linux as well, and it is a port made with Qt + OpenGL. I hope this means future Google applications for linux do not rely on large Wine libraries to run.

But the system requirements are too high, I doubt many from India have the required internet speed.
 
ujjwal said:
But the system requirements are too high, I doubt many from India have the required internet speed.

Forget the internet speed, most of the ppl dont have a decent graphic card to run google earth.
 
For my money I like GTK rather than QT. I found QT to be quite unweildy but yes would love straight ports rather than the winding part (emulator) called Wine :) I think hacker is talkin about me, Mr. hacker make the prices of m/b's having PCI/AGP as same as the ones without as well as have cheap graphic cards around 2k with 3 yr. warranties & u'll see lots of people putting money where their mouth is.
 
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