Earth on Google Earth

India's big newspapers make a major hungama about Google Earth and its security implications for India.

BY TOMS MATHEW

28th September, 2005: It seems that our newspapers are a bit out-of-date. Right now they are launching a massive attack on the earth mapping software from Google, Google Earth which was launched some time back. But the discussion deserves mention since some countries have raised alarm against the Google's software as they point out that the software can be a threat to their national security. They say that using the software, the terrorists can track and spot their military bases and other sensitive places and use the data to plan and carry out their attack. 

Google Earth is like viewing the entire world on your desktop. We can see exotic locales as well as those places of local importance like hospitals, schools and hotels. Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world at your fingertips. Wherever you may be, just type the name of the place you want to zoom in and the view zooms out and slowly but steadily the camera goes over the Earth's surface to zoom in on the place you have just typed. My apologies, the Google Earth I downloaded just refused my names like Mumbai and Bombay. It said, the specified names cannot be found. Hope its just some technical problem.

The guys at Google deserve applause for creating this "free but fabulous" software and making it a 
masterpiece. We are not forgetting the concerns of some world leaders, but still Google has done its job done well. 

Using this software, we can get driving directions, tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings, save and share our searches and favorites and even add our own annotations. 

Once you have found out your destination, the first thing that shows up on your screen is a satellite image of the place. There are controls to zoom in or out even further, move north, south, east, and west and save specific locations on the map. 

Instead of giving satellite images, the software wraps the high-resolution photos on a three-dimensional model of our planet earth, giving us the chance to enjoy the place we choose from the angle we choose. 

Running Google Earth on a dial-up connection is unthinkable, beacuse of the enormous amount of data it collects when we zoom in on a paticluar spot. Also, those who are using four year old computers or more, please stay back from using this software as it can slow down or eventually halt your system.

Google Earth includes 3-D models of buildings in 38 American cities and those in need can find out nearby ATMs, earthquake epicenters, crime rates and churches( and ofcourse, bars!!). 

Let me confess, Google has shown a discrimination to its Google Earth users by providing less important locations with images of less image quality ( and sometimes, really bad) whereas cities and metros have a better quality. I tried to figure out my small little town circled with mountains and rubber plantations, but all I could figure out was some greenery and the river which flows through the heart of my town. I tried to follow the river to track my town, but the Google Earth made me sad. One day, the people in my town too will start using Internet, industries will come to my town, and the town will prosper. On that day, Im sure you guys at the Google will be forced to give me a better quality picture.

Google Earth hides one of its most impotant and useful features under its Tools menu - the "Measure" command which will calculate the distance between two points A and B along a straight line , or along a path of our choice. This feature can prove very useful for those using cars since they can manage the mileage better.

The program's Layers panes allows us to decide what kind of information to be showed on the map. We can select roads, hospitals, grocery stores, restaurants and even golf courses. 

Google Earth provides a good way for showing kids the earth and its historical monuments. The software has many more advantages than an ordinary globe because it gives pictures taken from an aerial view unlike the drawings you see on a globe. So the kids can have a better understanding of the site and if they want, they can zoom in on their house too. So in many ways, the Google Earth can be a better replacement for a globe.

The Google Earth will not run a Mac PC at all, but Google says that its working on it. Also, the download comes as an enormous 12 MB file, those with less RAMs may have a problem.

But all in all, the free software from Search Engine giant Google is an excellent Earth mapping software, using which we can have lots of fun and at the sametime, a bit informative too.

BY TOMS MATHEW