
Google Earth Redesigned - coolmitch
https://www.google.com/earth/
======
futurix
"Google Chrome required" \- sure, because current crop of web developers are
too young to remember dark age of Internet Explorer domination.

~~~
krisdol
What web technology does this use, specifically, that prevents firefox usage?
Or is it just a chrome plugin they decided not to port?

~~~
spankalee
I think the issues is that it uses NaCl - I assume they compiled the existing
Earth engine to run on the web.

Most likely web-based Earth was launching just too early to switch from NaCl
to WASM, which just shipped, and they'll port to NaCl soon.

~~~
Analemma_
Hasn't NaCl been abandoned? On top of the annoying browser incompatibility,
this is also a pretty embarrassing case of Google's left hand not knowing what
the right hand is doing.

------
watbe
Looks like the Google Earth Flight Simulator[0] didn't make the cut. Many
features are missing from the original desktop app and it's not immediately
clear what this offers over using "Earth" within Google Maps. The "auto-rotate
around the landmark" feature is also a pain for people who are used to maps
being north-facing by default.

[0] [https://googlesystem.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/google-earth-
eas...](https://googlesystem.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/google-earth-easter-egg-
flight.html#gsc.tab=0)

~~~
therealmarv
It seems this is the Google way. They kill one product (especially a desktop
product) and it takes years till the new one is on every feature on the same
level as the old one... look at Picasa vs. Google Photos. Even today Picasa
can do many more things that Google Photos cannot do today. I'm sure the
native/old Google Earth has a ton of stuff which is not ported to the web
version.

Good they cannot convert Chrome itself as a web app :D

~~~
ClassyJacket
I find it interesting that they recently introduced location sharing to Google
Maps as a new feature... which it had back in 2009, until they got rid of it.

~~~
cptskippy
They had tons of handy features in Google Maps before it was redesigned using
Material Design. We used the route elevation data often to plan hiking trips
with our parents to determine if they would be able to make a trek. The map
scale was absent from the first couple releases and when they reintroduced it,
it would only appear on zoom and then vanish. It took 3 or 4 more releases for
them to finally add an option buried in the settings to make it always on.

I'd like to say they did this to present a clean minimalist app but the recent
incarnations of it are more cluttered than the pre Material Design version.
Sure you can tap on the map to minimize the clutter and then tap again to make
it go away completely but tapping also drops a pin if you hold it for a
sixteenth of a second longer. And I hope your touchscreen isn't super
sensitive because it'll detect that flutter as a double tap and then you're
just zooming.

~~~
dublinben
If you'd like to plan trips that have elevation data, I highly recommend
komoot.com. It uses OpenStreetMap, and is a great tool for planning hiking or
cycling trips.

~~~
cptskippy
I'll check it out, thanks. We were using Maps in a more adhoc manner when
touring Scotland. It was great, now not so much.

~~~
therealmarv
For any serious trip abroad I use OSMand (but only on Android) ... you can use
hiking routes (GPX), all offline (great if you have no phone signal). Also
helped me more than once for parking or finding the next public toilet (haha).
You can even using for skiing, biking or navigation on the water.

And regarding elevation it seems it is also there inside:
[https://github.com/osmandapp/Osmand/issues/1795](https://github.com/osmandapp/Osmand/issues/1795)

~~~
4ad
OSMand has the worst UX I have ever experienced. Hands down.

Personally I use Gaia GPS and Pocket Earth for hiking/nature.

~~~
therealmarv
When was the last time you used it? 2 years ago I would agree.

------
tps5
I never see anyone talking about google's elevation data for buildings and the
process they've used to drape imagery over that elevation data. I wonder why
that is? Maybe this isn't a hard problem and it's just a question of getting
high quality data. Still, I've never seen any other company come close to
this.

I do wonder what exactly is new here in terms of a casual user browsing the
landscape. Google maps 3D offers, more or less, the same experience. And
that's been around for a while.

Still, it's hard to be negative about this. The result is quite clearly better
than every other comparable technology I've seen.

~~~
nxc18
Apple Maps does the same thing and was doing it before Google. Interestingly,
Apple seems to have better imagery, at least where I am; trees are sharper and
more realistic, the ground imagery is more detailed and the colors truer to
life. In the forests, trees are rendered clearly enough that I can recognize
the landmarks, which just isn't possible in Google's rendering. The only
downside is that Google's colors are prettier than Apple's, at the expense of
accuracy.

Bing (via the Maps app) is also doing this type of thing, but with a less
robust set of data.

Google's implementation appears to be based on oblique (angle, taken from
plane) imagery similar to Bing's "Bird's Eye View" feature; if you open up old
Google Earth you can see oblique shots from various angles that match the
exaggerated coloring of the final 3D maps.

Seriously though, check out Apple Maps. I didn't think I'd be recommending it,
as I nerd out about Google Earth a lot, but it's actually got great imagery &
models.

~~~
tps5
Can I check out Apple Maps in a browser? I'd like to take a look, but I don't
have easy access to ios or macos.

The screenshots do look fantastic.

(Not a criticism of Apple if this isn't possible)

~~~
CameronBanga
It's possible, although Apple doesn't advertise it or make it real easy to get
to. Sharing locations using Apple apps can present a web page, with an
embedded map that works fine in a browser:

[https://maps.apple.com/place?address=10365%20Gorenflo%20Rd%0...](https://maps.apple.com/place?address=10365%20Gorenflo%20Rd%0ADiberville%2C%20MS%20%2039540%0AUnited%20States&auid=3930665398072383877&ll=30.441054699999999%2C-88.889284200000006&lsp=9902&q=Park%20at%20Lemoyne)

There have been a couple small indie projects which basically load Apple maps
in an iFrame, but I think they've been mostly C&Ded.

~~~
euyyn
I only see the vectorial map in that link. Is there a way to see satellite, or
even better, 3D?

~~~
tantalor
Not vector; those are jpg tiles.

~~~
euyyn
I couldn't find a word for non-satellite map :)

------
callahad
If any Googlers are reading this: What does the new Earth require that Firefox
is missing? I'm happy to help file things in Bugzilla so that this Chrome App
can grow into a standards-based Web app.

~~~
spankalee
NaCl

~~~
NuDinNou
Bad news

> Mozilla's Christopher Blizzard criticized NaCl, claiming that native code
> cannot evolve in the same way that the source code-driven web can. He also
> compared NaCl to Microsoft's ActiveX technology, plagued with DLL Hell.

~~~
spankalee
I suspect a future version will use WASM

------
CommieBobDole
Well, this is great. It's just like Google Earth, but slower and without all
the neat features like historical imagery that made Google Earth awesome.
Seriously, it doesn't even seem to support historical street view, which was
the only big Maps feature that was missing from Earth.

For anybody who wants to see what this is a pale imitation of, Google Earth
Pro for desktop is still downloadable and still free (and still full of weird
unfixed bugs because they've been working on this "replacement" instead)

[https://www.google.com/earth/desktop/](https://www.google.com/earth/desktop/)

------
LeonM
I'm really impressed by the amount of detail in the 3D views (hold middle
mouse button to look around).

Even the fair at the field near my house [0] can be viewed in 3D!.
Coincidentally they are currently building that same fair today, so for a
moment I thought the images were live...

[0]
[https://earth.google.com/web/@52.08511654,4.31805086,0.37952...](https://earth.google.com/web/@52.08511654,4.31805086,0.37952354a,143.62359855d,35y,74.28635143h,44.29917602t,0r/data=CkwaShJECiUweDQ3YzViNzczYmZmZmZmZmY6MHhmOTJkM2VjNGZhYmE2MmJhGULEcvDxCkpAIQunFltSRxFAKglNYWxpZXZlbGQYASAB)

~~~
silversmith
How are they building the 3D views? Mapping cars driving around with sensors?
I was under the impression that the shapes were inferred from satellite
images, but the moment I step outside the major cities, it's back to flat
maps. Even the couple hand-modelled buildings previously present in maps seem
to be missing here.

~~~
Jaruzel
This is exactly what I want to know. There's several towns in the UK that have
all the houses in really good 3D (mostly the coastal towns) - I struggle to
believe that there's a team of humans making these...

~~~
maxerickson
There's a (yuuuge) public Lidar dataset for the UK:

[https://environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2015/09/18/laser-
surve...](https://environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2015/09/18/laser-surveys-
light-up-open-data/)

One of the motivations for the collection was flood analysis, which overlaps
with your observation about coastal towns.

~~~
folli
I'm not sure that's it's only LIDAR data. There are e.g. some cranes and
scaffolding that also are 3D modeled. I assume it's some magical machine
learning pipeline that accumulates the aerial and street view imagery, LIDAR
where available, and generates a 3D model.

------
psyc
Off-topic from the update, but sometime in the past 2 years the quality of
their universal photogrammetry became jaw-dropping.

~~~
danmaz74
Yes, I was blown away when I first noticed this. And I was thinking how much
this data, which is free for everybody, would be worth in case of a war...

~~~
zeptomu
It's not really free.

It's free in the sense, that you can browse around, but if you wanted to do
some analysis on it, you would need access to the raw bulk data, and this is
_very_ expensive.

There _is_ free aerial imagery data available (e.g. ESA's Sentinel-2), but it
has lower resolution (10m/Pixel). If you want to do the 3D building thing, I
estimate you need data with something like 1m/Pixel and from different
perspectives. This data volume is rather big (Exabyte-scale) and it is non-
trivial to host and access it, so currently only the big players have it.

~~~
bpicolo
San Francisco definitely has resolutions better than 1m/pixel it feels like
(for buildings downtown) At least, you can clearly identify segments that
would be < 1m across.

~~~
zeptomu
Yeah, there is high-resolution data available, but it is scattered around
small-scale web portals mostly built by the government in this local area, and
aggregating and polishing this data is a non-trivial huge effort (they come in
different scales, projections and quality).

Furthermore most data is orthographic only, so you can built a nice 2D map out
of it, but to do 3D I estimate you need images from specified angles (e.g. 4
views per place), and I think this data is still behind closed doors and quite
expensive.

------
discordianfish
Doesn't do anything on my ubuntu / chromium system.

~~~
Morantron
same here ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

------
asymmetric
Why the hard requirement on Google Chrome?

~~~
espes
Because it uses PNaCl

~~~
Aaargh20318
AKA Google ActiveX.

This was a bad idea when Microsoft did it and it's still a horrible idea now.

~~~
blowski
Bad idea for whom? Developers, users, shareholders?

~~~
pilif
users. it's terribly hard to secure.

------
noir_lord
They where knocking a large building down near the office recently, this has
that building in a partial state of demolition and has modeled the girders
that where exposed.

I admit to looking at it slightly slack-jawed, that wasn't so much future
shock as the future punching me square in the face.

[https://earth.google.com/web/@53.74539679,-0.32722384,18.713...](https://earth.google.com/web/@53.74539679,-0.32722384,18.71382064a,234.32784729d,35y,3.04492516h,64.07003691t,-0r/data=CkgaRhJACiUweDE1MThlNmRjNDEzY2M2YTc6MHg4Nzc1NDZmNDg4MmFmNjIwGTf4wmSqZkFAIcSUSKKXf0NAKgVTeXJpYRgBIAE)

~~~
Mithaldu
Universally useful link (ctrl+click to rotate):
[https://www.google.de/maps/place/53%C2%B044'43.4%22N+0%C2%B0...](https://www.google.de/maps/place/53%C2%B044'43.4%22N+0%C2%B019'38.0%22W/@53.7449284,-0.3271697,52a,54.9y,1.88h,53.41t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d53.7453968!4d-0.3272238?hl=en)

This has been around for years.

------
NoGravitas
I love the way they play well with web standards:
[http://imgur.com/a/c9cNT](http://imgur.com/a/c9cNT)

------
Mister_Snuggles
Interesting...

When I visit this on iOS, I get a message that says "Google Earth for iOS is
coming soon." Of course, there's already a Google Earth app for iOS. When I
launch the Google Earth app on iOS, I get a message that says (roughly) "The
developer has to update this application to work with future versions of iOS".
This is weird since it was last updated in May 2016, though that appears to be
a very minor update.

In other words, the old iOS app is effectively abandoned and the new one isn't
available.

------
throw7
"Google Chrome is required to run the new Google Earth."

thanks for nothing.

------
jordache
still an annoying aspect of Google Earth -

I can see a long range of mountains from my 2nd floor windows. I want to drop
down to approximately the same position and elevation (from my 2nd floor
window) and take in the same view on Google Earth. The intent is to identify
mountain peaks that I can not determine in real life.

Google earth limits the angle one can tilt while the POV is close to the
ground.

~~~
arethuza
Have you tried this site?

[http://www.udeuschle.selfhost.pro/panoramas/makepanoramas_en...](http://www.udeuschle.selfhost.pro/panoramas/makepanoramas_en.htm)

Edit: It generates panoramas with mountains and hills labelled .

~~~
jordache
thanks for the link...

Yes this is precisely the perspective I want to view on Google Map, with the
added benefit of being able to double click on a distant peak and fly right to
it, or perhaps also a feature to return to previous position so one can easily
toggle between points of interests

~~~
arethuza
The panoramas generated do have links to the relevant locations in Google Maps
- though no "flying" :-)

------
bla2
I don't​ know why Google Earth exists. The satellite mode in maps is very
good, doesn't depend on PNaCl, and is part of Google Maps, where it makes
sense.

~~~
oppositelock
Javascript has big performance limits which don't allow Maps to do everything
that Earth does. The 3D engine in Earth does a whole lot of magic to get the
visual quality that it has. In Javascript, you have to trade off everything to
minimize your function call overhead into WebGL and try to pre-generate as
much static content as possible. Earth has a much quicker access path to GL,
which allows it to render more and higher quality visuals.

Satellite mode without terrain can look fine in JS/WebGL. Once you start
tilting the view and seeing terrain and buildings, the JS performance will be
horrible pretty fast, and adaptive LOD streaming is hard due to the function
call overhead.

I worked on the Google Earth desktop app for a few years, so this isn't idle
speculation.

This new NaCL version seems to be nowhere near feature parity with the old
desktop client, sadly. I hope it catches up, since I loved the historical
imagery, for instance. The good news is that the desktop app still works if
you want to see that.

~~~
bla2
Thanks for the reply. I played with this new version and with Maps's Earth
mode for a bit today, and to me they feel identical 3d-eise (except that the
new thing only works in chrome, and I like Maps's UI better).

------
anc84
What is the difference to the 3D view in Google Maps?

edit: (honest question, dear downvoters...)

~~~
DanTheManPR
I would like an answer too - I genuinely don't understand what the difference
is.

------
JepZ
Well, it doesn't work for me. After clicking the link I see only some
wallpaper and a text 'Google Earth'. I use Chromium 57 with Linux. Any ideas
why it doesn't work?

Google maps (Earth + 3D) works without problems. When I open the website with
Firefox I get a nice text telling me that google earth is an advertising
platform for chrome ;-)

'Aw snap! The new Google Earth isn't supported by your browser yet. Try this
link in Chrome instead. If you don't have Chrome installed, download it here.'

------
rakshithbekal
As expected doesn't work in edge. Atleast bypassed the disclaimer changing the
user string. Things like these make me want to not use their services.

------
defenestration
The new Apple HQ building site looks impressive in 3D:
[https://earth.google.com/web/@37.33478572,-122.00939683,47.8...](https://earth.google.com/web/@37.33478572,-122.00939683,47.8437939a,465.11726319d,35y,65.7414677h,60.00288635t,-0r)

They didn't close the circle yet, to let trucks enter the midsection.

~~~
pyromine
What's more interesting to me is the cranes are 3d modeled, that was not
expected

~~~
folli
Yes, I noticed that too. How is this done? There has to be some machine
learning involved, accumulating all the aerial imagery and street view data
and somehow generate a 3D model. This can't be all LIDAR data, can it?

~~~
kristofferR
I think it's just Stereophotogrammetry (regular pictures from different
angles), I doubt LIDAR and ML is used. It's at least not required.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogrammetry#Stereophotogram...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogrammetry#Stereophotogrammetry)

~~~
zulln
Have you not heard? Machine learning is used for everything today, and if it
was not it definitely should been.

------
andy_ppp
Embrace and Extend the web with Chrome only apps like this. Google are
basically old Microsoft at this point.

~~~
neilsimp1
I really liked having a separate application to open for Google Earth instead
of a browser. I take it this won't be an option any more?

~~~
heavymark
Chrome allows you to turn any website into it's own app, but saving a website
such as Google Earth to your bookmarks then drag that to chrome://apps and
right click on it and choose Open Full Screen and create short cut. So it will
you will be able to open it like an app and find it in spotlight/alfred and
you can still use chrome for websites separately.

~~~
JetSpiegel
An "app". Just a glorified browser page without chrome. You can achieve the
same thing with a shortcut.

------
RubyPinch
each time I look at google's 3d representations for things, I really wonder
why they don't do manual touchups for certain places

I mean, if you are including the Eiffel Tower in the intro pages, could both
make it look cleaner, and make it use less net resources

~~~
jobigoud
We need something like OpenStreetMap but with 3D content like this. And allow
people to touch up the models.

~~~
stuntkite
OSM Buildings[1] and Mapbox's Unity3d SDK[2] is providing some really cool
stuff in this area. Google definitely doesn't have the whole market locked up.
I think we'll see some really cool mapping stuff this year.

[1] [https://osmbuildings.org/](https://osmbuildings.org/)

[2] [https://www.mapbox.com/blog/mapbox-
unity/](https://www.mapbox.com/blog/mapbox-unity/)

------
shortimer
I thought that their imaging was all from satellite, but this image seems to
show a very-close-to-the-camera windmill which would seem to hint at a
drone....?
[https://earth.google.com/web/@32.65401271,128.717528,189.113...](https://earth.google.com/web/@32.65401271,128.717528,189.11365248a,154.7733102d,35y,65.37849899h,66.55599122t,0r/data=ChQaEgoML2cvMXMwNTQ3cGxiGAEgAQ)

~~~
niklasrde
Nah, it makes more sense if you go to the 2D view of the same spot [1].
There'll always be some parallax perspective offset towards the edges of the
satellite image.

[1]
[https://earth.google.com/web/@32.65383541,128.71781037,186.9...](https://earth.google.com/web/@32.65383541,128.71781037,186.97921881a,312.95734321d,35y,70.35751109h,0t,0r/data=ChQaEgoML2cvMXMwNTQ3cGxiGAEgAQ)

------
noja
Google Chrome is required. Nope.

~~~
pasta
I wish Google would lower search engine rankings for sites that require some
kind of browser or plugin.

~~~
aluhut
Obviously they don't want to hurt themselves.

~~~
ygra
Well, their crawler uses Chrome anyway, so it wouldn't notice, I guess.

------
ageofwant
This is where the aluminium in your Coke can comes from:
[https://earth.google.com/web/@-32.55733803,116.19955541,310....](https://earth.google.com/web/@-32.55733803,116.19955541,310.41957882a,59338.79591988d,35y,0h,0t,0r/data=CkwaShJECiQweDJhMzI5NGMwNmZiYWJlY2Q6MHg1MDRmMGI1MzVkZjUwMDAZh0Tr8vcNQMAh-
CqeH-sEXUAqClJvbGV5c3RvbmUYASAB)

------
expertentipp
Navigating 3D maps in the desktop browsers has always been clunky with UI
controls for panning, tilting, zooming, and their unclear mapping with the
mouse buttons. They solved it by assigning the left mouse button to set an
anchor and middle mouse button to "operate" the camera. Very simple and
intuitive - I'm impressed, good job.

------
SilverSlash
Oh man this is amazing! It's fast too. I can only imagine this getting better
still with more research in deep learning.

~~~
tinkr10
Can you please tell me how deep learning is used in this app?

~~~
SilverSlash
Sorry for any confusion. I don't mean to say deep learning is used in this app
(though it might be). What I wanted to say was that with the advent of
generative networks, generating 3D models on the fly from a few image data
will hopefully keep getting better.

------
IBM
How great would it be if they did the same thing for Google Finance as well?
It hasn't been touched in years.

~~~
marban
Just like Google A, B, C and then some.

------
exodust
One thing I'm disappointed about... In the desktop version when you click and
drag then let go, the camera will keep flying across the landscape without
slowing down. Depending how fast you drag, it's possible to slowly and
gracefully glide over the landscape in any direction you choose.

This is a cool feature that is no longer possible in this new "improved"
Google Earth. The camera now comes to a dead stop.

I really hope they can add an option to bring back the "zero resistance"
camera or whatever you call it. Or a flying camera mode or similar.

It means you can sit back and glide over a city slowly, just above the
buildings or mountains without needing to interact. If you choose a nice slow
speed, the approaching map data loads in time and you have yourself a nice
aerial trip over the land.

------
excalibur
> Loading in progress. 0 of 4.543 billion years processed.

Impressive.

~~~
iplaw
Same problem here. On the first page visit, it loaded to 3,XXX,XXX,XXX of
4.543 billion years and froze. On refresh, it doesn't load a damn thing.

I am using up-to-date Chrome.

------
sytelus
I checked some of not so famous places and 3D re-construction of environment
is really good. I would assume they probably have even higher detailed 3D
environment internally. Now if they can only allow to use this for developing
self-driving cars algorithms :).

~~~
Agentlien
My wife's home town in Belgium looks amazing in 3D at Google Earth.

[https://goo.gl/I4b46I](https://goo.gl/I4b46I)

Unforutnately, all of Sweden is still entirely flat. I wonder why.

~~~
adtac
I was in Leuven last summer. Absolutely beautiful place.

------
rocky1138
How is this any better than the desktop version that's already out?

~~~
problems
It's not - they just stopped developing the desktop one because now they're
all about web-only.

It sucks too because we use the desktop one all the time at work - though
we're slowly replacing it with custom Cesium-based stuff.

~~~
rocky1138
Do you think they will ever go back to building what people want?

~~~
jonknee
Who's to say they aren't? I bet the web version has an order of magnitude more
users than the desktop version.

------
user5994461
"Aw snap! The new Google Earth isn't supported by your browser yet. Try this
link in Chrome instead. If you don't have Chrome installed, download it here."

------
paulofalcao
The 3d view is faster in google maps than google earth, why do we need google
earth? Also I'm already used to use ctrl to rotate the view on google maps.

------
amelius
Bug: the demo only shows beautiful aspect of the Earth, not the polluted
industrial areas, trash yards, plastic gyres, ship graveyards, oil spills, et
cetera.

------
Arkaad
They don't even explain why Chrome is mandatory! "Learn more." just sends us
to the Chrome page...

------
Untit1ed
A bit disappointed to be honest - this doesn't do much better than Cesium and
has a hard requirement on Chrome :(.

~~~
stuntkite
Cesium is a clusterfuck of JS though. I also once thought it was cool then I
tried to use it professionally and extend it. It's a nightmare. Mapbox and
Vizicities are offering some good stuff with real DEM now. Fingers crossed.

------
minikomi
Well. Gives you a good idea of how massive Tokyo SkyTree is.

[https://earth.google.com/web/@35.71013838,139.81057456,323.8...](https://earth.google.com/web/@35.71013838,139.81057456,323.83953229a,1872.25254428d,35y,89.34096197h,93.36321476t,-0r)

------
piyush_soni
Looks like only few places in the US and some other cities elsewhere have the
3D view (that too not properly finished). Rest of them are still the old 2D.
Wasn't most of this already there? I have seen their 3D view before, so
besides performance improvement nothing much is new?

------
wolfgke
Does this browser version of Google Earth also support the 3D mice that
3Dconnexion produces? I prefer using them in Google Earth for
flying/zooming/rotating _so much_ over using a regular mouse.

------
gejjaxxita
On my 4 core i7 laptop with 8GB of RAM running Ubuntu this juddered and
flashed a lot and CPU utilisation went to 100% on all cores... I didn't think
my laptop was that bad.

------
usmeteora
I want to VR around the earth. I was kind of excited and hoping this was that

~~~
anc84
[https://vr.google.com/earth/](https://vr.google.com/earth/)

------
kensai
The fact that it was designed to be used only with Chrome is troubling. Of
course it was the right of Google to decide on whatever platform they wanted.

Anyone knows if there is a parallel "open" version in the works (in
WebAssembly or similar)?

~~~
rocky1138
There's a desktop client available for Linux, Windows, and Mac.

------
shthed
Lets hope they release an API for it, google maps api still only 2d and google
earth api got discontinued years ago

------
yalogin
There is no information on the redesign. The only thing I know is they made
Chrome a requirement to use it.

------
kristofferR
I'm glad to see that they've fixed the Oslo bug (half the city couldn't load
since 2014).

------
Arkaad
They don't even explain why Chrome is mandatory!

"Learn more." just sends us to the Chrome page...

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jaimex2
Nice, I hope someone makes a GTA 1 clone using the models and data :)

------
piratebroadcast
I have Chrome but my computer doesnt support WebGL apparently.

~~~
AbuAssar
go to chrome://flags and enable overriding the gpu black list also there is an
option to force Hardware acceleration.

I tried it and works fine.

------
nicoboo
Mobile view using F12 dev-tools shows a not-so-well-done design. That's a
first for Google but I guess it will be improved even on various devices
without having to install/try the apps.

But it's a good first shot, keep going guys!

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Jdam
Just why did they re-use the K8s logo on the landing page?

~~~
swozey
It is a bit goofy using another products logo but Kubernetes means Helmsman
and that product is called Voyager so I see where they were going with using a
ships wheel.

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xliiv
this is absolutly awesome. Polymer shines :)

------
bru
Very impressive, but too bad zooming in a zone isn't smooth: it keeps
accelerating and slowing down on my computer, which feels dizziness-inducing.

------
nisa
Hangs my current Chrome on Linux on a Core2Duo E8400 with older Intel onboard
GPU - The old Google Earth Linux runs fine :(

------
sidcool
This is an engineering marvel.

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hoektoe
Got a bit of vertigo there

------
yownie
"Google Chrome is required to run the new Google Earth. Please try this link
in Chrome. Learn more. "

GFY.

------
perilunar
j

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kmfrk
I think it's a little funny and symptomatic of HN that we can't take a minute
to fucking marvel at the fact that we've got something like this in the first
place without going over the font or the whatever.

Technology is amazing and moving rapidly, and if we can't take out five
minutes to revel in an achievement like this, I don't know what the point is.

~~~
mattmanser
Devil's advocate, what exactly can this do that we couldn't do 10 years ago?

What achievement are we revelling in? That they've managed to replicate
something a desktop app could already do in javascript?

~~~
VLM
The old google earth was like an atlas and you could look at anything you'd
like and draw your own opinions and experiences based on what you saw.

The new one is marketed like the plague of interpretive centers that turn free
discovery into a linear factory commodity experience of being told what is
important, what to look at, and what facts to regurgitate on command.

I suspect the new one will be very popular for school teachers.

------
pasta
_404\. That’s an error.

The requested URL /static/9.0.31.6/balloon/balloon.html was not found on this
server. That’s all we know._

Great...

Edit: after some F5-ing got it working. The 3D view is great! And I wonder why
maps should be so slow. This feels much faster.

Edit2: I keep getting the 404 error every time. Looks like something is still
wrong.

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danielsamuels
My house isn't even on there. :(

