[soundboy]

Go to Google.com and click on more. Then scroll halfway down and on the first couple of items under Google Tools, you will find Google Earth. Read the instructions and download it.

What is it? Think of it as a flight simulator to the extreme. Everything is real and you can zoom in and out. Change elevation. Blah, blah, blah. Yes, you can even fly over Area 51.

Check it out.

 

[Shift]

Yea it's pretty cool, although a lot of overlays and cool stuff don't work in for Canadian cities.

 

[CRESCENDOPOWER]

Pretty cool! I just went to Tequila Mexico for a bottle of Tequila.

 

[Stephonovich]

Yup. It's a nifty little toy. Takes quite a system to run it well, though. My only beef is the long delays when it has to download new content (i.e., whenever you zoom into a place you haven't previously visited). I've got 1.5MB DSL and it still takes a good 30-45 seconds to fully download the area. I'm not sure if the files are huge, servers are slow, or what.

 

[daycart1]

I've been meaning to check this out. Another cool Google service is a citation index which is pretty good: scholar.google.com

 

[Born2bwire]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stephonovich Yup. It's a nifty little toy. Takes quite a system to run it well, though. My only beef is the long delays when it has to download new content (i.e., whenever you zoom into a place you haven't previously visited). I've got 1.5MB DSL and it still takes a good 30-45 seconds to fully download the area. I'm not sure if the files are huge, servers are slow, or what.

I don't have to wait on anything when I use it, the streaming seems seamless.

 

[Stephonovich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Born2bwire I don't have to wait on anything when I use it, the streaming seems seamless.

How fast is your internet connection/CPU/graphics card? Mine's a 1500/256 DSL, Athlon XP 2000+, nVidia 6800 NU.

 

[Born2bwire]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stephonovich How fast is your internet connection/CPU/graphics card? Mine's a 1500/256 DSL, Athlon XP 2000+, nVidia 6800 NU.

1.7GHz Pentium M, Radeon 7500 Mobility. As to the speed of the connection, I have only tried it out on the office LAN which will test rather fast, 5 MB/s, but in practice the download speed is incredibly slow most of the time.

 

[wrhawk]

Downloaded it yesterday but used it for the first time today. It's much faster than the online version that can be controlled through google maps, and streamed pretty seamlessly (over standard-fair cable). Being able to adjust the tilt is neat, i guess, but as there's no topographical info, it's a bit usless at this stage in the program's life. Hopefully we'll have more stunning globe-mapping tech in years to come.

 

[clarke68]

I was just turned on to it today, and I'm blown away. Spent the whole night leaving those little 'push pin' icons in front of every place I've ever lived and every famous jazz club I could think of.

This is going to completely change the way we...well, the way we do something, I don't know. It's super cool, tho.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wrhawk Being able to adjust the tilt is neat, i guess, but as there's no topographical info, it's a bit usless at this stage in the program's life.

There is actually, it's just not everywhere yet. Make sure you have the 'terrain' box checked in the dashboard area below the display, then open this file.

I checked out some National parks too, but they don't seem to have the same level of detail. Hopefully that's in the works!

 

[D-EJ915]

I tried it today and it crashed the computer I was using twice, lol...pretty neat though, I showed my dad where a girl I know lives in her "complex" which is like 1/5as big as the yacht club which is across from it.

 

[Permonic]

I have Toshiba Satellite (Win XP, Pentium M 1.6 GHz, 512 RAM, with GeForce FX Go5200) and can't run the program. I usually get this warning: "nVidia OpenGL Driver: Driver components mis-match. Exit is the only option."

Any advice?

 

[Stephonovich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Permonic I have Toshiba Satellite (Win XP, Pentium M 1.6 GHz, 512 RAM, with GeForce FX Go5200) and can't run the program. I usually get this warning: "nVidia OpenGL Driver: Driver components mis-match. Exit is the only option." Any advice?

You could try updating your drivers. I think it should work on most any modern card. If not, switch over to Direct3D as your rendering device.

 

[warubozu]

Tried it out today, pretty amazing. Too bad some of the locations I was looking at wasn't fully detailed as of this moment, only got a pixelated image even at high altitudes.

 

[fr4c]

very amusing I find.