Modulator

I am still excited about the new Google Earth application I mentioned in the last post. However, after spending way too much time playing with it yesterday some concerns and caveats:

1. I’m not sure it really needs the computing power claimed. It never seemed to use more than 3-5% of CPU on my laptop which is hardly a speed demon (Pentium M 1.6GHz).
2. The above might be because it is currently interminably slow uploading data. Individual locations seemed ok at first but then became very slow and if you try to do anything really interesting like tilt and scroll (like driving down the highway) it is just not ready for prime time.
3. There are a lot of gaps in the satellite images and some are pretty old. I’d like to know they are making a concerted effort to fill the gaps and update the old pictures.

On the other hand, I am really excited for the future of these type of applications. Microsoft, Yahoo, etc., will have to respond and then Google again, and, will, just let your imagination run wild. We think there is cool stuff on the web now. It will seem like horse and buggies in a few years.
Update: With somewhat faster data loading this morning I did see CPU spikes up to 52%. Also, testing some local directions I discovered that Google does not yet know about a major new local freeway interchange that was completed about 6 months ago. They definitely need to work on their updating.

Barry has the goods on Google Earth.
This is too cool! Never mind playing games to dribble away time. If you’ve got the bandwidth and the system go now and play.

• Watching the earth spin as you swing from the US to, say, Fallujah is pretty nifty.
• Even though I’ve seen the shot before it is still a bit unnerving to be able to identify my car in the driveway of my house!

Warning: Broadband and computing power needed. You will not want to play with this if you are a dial up user! Well, you will want to, but it will be really, really slow.