While most of the Mac residential area ’s eye were on declaration coming out of Macworld Expo in San Francisco last week , another cock-a-hoop merchandise annunciation — as big as the Earth itself — came from just down the route at Google ’s Mountain View , Calif. , headquarters .
Google release a genus Beta of itsGoogle Earthprogram for the Mac OS X. The practical Earth simulation software incorporates map , take directions , and planet double with Google Search capabilities . It allows users to zoom and pan over three - dimensional virtual cities and landscape painting , drilling down from space to overhead inside information .
Users can get into in an address or attractor and rapid growth in from an outer space view for a tight birds - eye view . The software lets you circumvolve and angle 3 - D buildings and terrain features , such as James Jerome Hill and canyons , to be see from multiple perspectives . The software also can overlie all sort of data — everything from hotel and restaurant locations to informative location - based postal service on nearby attractions by other Google Earth users;that entropy display straightaway on the map .
Contrary to some report , the Mac interpretation include GPS musical accompaniment . “ There are several machine that currently plump for the Google Earth KML including Garmin devices , ” Google spokeswoman Eileen Rodriguez said . “ GPS gadget owners can choose to export their GPS data asKMLand view it in Google Earth . Additionally , there are many geocachers creating KML treks . TheGeocaching.com entanglement sitealso patronage the KML data format for viewing in Google Earth . ”
Google says that Google Earth for the Mac has all the capableness of the PC version , which was exhaust in beta last June and hit prescribed release position at the same time the Mac genus Beta was range out .
However , Google has no authoritative announcement as to when to expect Mac versions of its enhanced ware — Google Earth Plus , a $ 20 upgrade that imports data from spreadsheets and has some drawing features , andGoogle Earth Pro , designed for professional economic consumption by realtors , insurance agents , and administration employee that can include information such as dealings counting and the National Realtor ’s Board shopping center information . Both enhanced products are uncommitted for Microsoft Windows .
The detached download requires Mac OS X 10.4 , a 500MHz processor , 256 M of RAM , and 400 megabit of disc space .
