Google Earth for iPhone version 2.0

By Scott Knaster, Google Mac Team

There's a nice update to Google Earth for iPhone and iPod touch available now. You can read all about it in the Google Mobile Blog and you can grab the update in the App Store.

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Some tips on building useful tours in Google Earth

Many of us create tours in Google Earth, but have you ever thought about the usability of those tours for your users? Richard Treves tackled that exact question, and came out with a handful of great tips. In particular, he studied whether users could find the locations that were shown in the tour on a map, and what parameters affected that.

Speed didn't matter much. You can fly users into placemarks surprisingly fast without affecting their ability to find the location later.

Overview was important. If the tour pulled out to a high altitude to show the previous and next locations at once, the user was much more likely to be able to recall the locations of the placemarks.

Distance vs Direction was a problem. In most cases, users couldn't accurately estimate the distance between placemarks. Providing some kind of scale would likely help with this.

Richard gets into more detail in his write-up, so it's certainly worth checking out if you ever build tours in Google Earth.

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Google finally drops more 3D trees into Google Earth

When Google Earth 6 was released late last year, it brought with it the oft-requested feature of 3D trees. However, since that time, Google has only added a few additional sets of trees to Google Earth. The most notable was the substantial addition in London in preparation for the Royal Wedding.

Now Google has added trees in quite a few more cities including New York, Philadelphia, Boston, London and various cities in the California Bay Area. New York and London already had 3D tree coverage, so we can assume their coverage areas have been expanded with this latest release.

3D tree coverage makes an enormous difference in the realism of a particular area. As we said when they first unveiled this feature, it's something we've been waiting a long time for and we're glad they did such a fine job of building it. Now if we can just get some more trees added (Atlanta, please?), things will be even better!

To see them for yourself, simply open up Google Earth and fly to one of the cities listed above. Be sure that the "Trees" layer is checked under "3D Buildings" in the main "Layers" section on the left side of your Google Earth window.

Here's a short video that Google created to show off some of the new trees:

(via Google Lat Long Blog)

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New Google Earth Imagery - June 14

Thanks to sharp-eyed GEB reader 'Jorge', we see that Google has just released some fresh imagery into Google Earth!

As is usually the case, you can use Google Maps to determine for sure whether or not a specific area is fresh. This new imagery isn't in Google Maps yet, so you can compare Earth vs. Maps to see what's new; the fresh imagery is already in Google Earth, but the old imagery is still in Google Maps. If you compare the two side-by-side and they're not identical, that means that you've found a freshly updated area in Google Earth!

[UPDATED - 14-June, 11:35am EST]

• Cambodia: Various areas -- thanks 'Rob'
• North Korea: Pyonyang -- thanks 'junjun'
• Peru: Lima -- thanks 'Jorge'
• Romania: Small area near Sfantu Gheorghe -- thanks 'Popescu'

If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!

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Play Touristo and Skydiver; very impressive games using the Google Earth Plug-in

Jeff Katz, the founding CEO or Orbitz, has recently released Travel Game, an excellent series of games that use the Google Earth Plug-in to power them.

The first game in here is called Touristo, which allows you to navigate through exciting areas using helicopters to find specific goals. The mapping, graphics and controls are all top-notch.

The second game is called Skydiver. In this one, you ride up in a helicopter, jump, and then use the arrow keys to try to land on a target on the ground.

The games utilize quite a bit of social networking, allowing you to connect to Facebook friends, send them gifts, etc, and even use their photos inside of the games. The best part is that the games will have real, free travel rewards, which should help encourage more users to play.

Beyond all else, the games are simply fun to play and make excellent use of the Google Earth Plug-in. Head over to jktravelgame.com and try them for yourself!

(via Ad Age Digital)

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