Having always had a great interest in 3D technology like Second Life and having had some experience in Architecture and the CAD World a very long time ago, I regularly play with Google Earth to check out places I am going, Holiday destinations, Places of interest etc.. Therefore, any improvement from version to version and the possibilities of exposing the API to connect to other applications does intrigue me.

Google Earth API by Salar Golestanian

In the latest Google Earth 6 Google is taking realism in the virtual globe to the next level with two new features that is taking it a little closer to Second Life experience. In Google Earth 6, the Street View experience is now fully integrated, so you can journey from outer space right to your doorstep in one seamless flight. for example see this great blog titled "Touch down on the Earth's surface with Street View"

Here is some of the Improvements to previous version 5:-

Integrated Street View
Google Earth had created a lot of excitement when first introduced with its ability to fly from space right down to the roof of one’s house. In 2008 the Street View was implemented and now with Version 6, the Street View experience is now fully integrated, so you can journey from outer space right to your doorstep in one seamless flight

3D trees
Google Earth 6 now includes beautifully detailed, 3D models for dozens of species of trees, from the Japanese Maple to the East African Cordia to my personal favourite, the cacao tree. While we’ve just gotten started planting trees in Google Earth, we already have more than 80 million trees in places such as Athens, Berlin, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco and Tokyo.

Easy-to-use historical imagery
In this new version, Google has made it very easy to discover historical imagery. When you fly to an area where historical imagery is available, the date of the oldest imagery will appear in the status bar at the bottom of the screen. If you click on this date, you’ll instantly be taken back in time to view imagery from that time period.

For more details please visit Google Blog Site.

About the API.
The Google Earth API is a free service, available for any web site that is free. So I am very excited to start a project using this. For the API to go with this new version go here. The Google Earth Plug-in and its JavaScript API let you embed Google Earth, a true 3D digital globe, into your web pages. Using the API you can draw markers and lines, drape images over the terrain, add 3D models, or load KML files, allowing you to build sophisticated 3D map applications. If you have an existing Maps API site, you can 3D-enable your page with as little as one line of code. Please see the video below:

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About Scifiwood News Reviews and Blogs

These are various short and long News Articles, Reviews and Blogs by Salar Golestanian and employees of SalarO.com as well as contributors of Scifiwood.com. The subject matter are mixed topics with Pure Science to Science Fiction as well as general topics on Web Trends, Technology, Software Engineering genre, or whatever subject that can affect the convergence of today's technology with Science Fiction in any shape or form. These Blogs and Reviews don't have commercial or corporate aspiration, so they are indeed completely independent views. Some of these entries may be short and just link you to the actual news or site that can expand further on the subject of interest. In Phase II we plan to incorporate some Social Networking applications within the portal.