Google Earth

Where would we be without Google Earth?

Prior to June 2005 when it was first released I don't think any of us would have imagined that such a powerful package would be possible - let alone free.

To start off with it was able to show aerial photography, and show terrain in 3D, which in itself was fantastic. Since then it has added functionality to view Panoramio photographs to be positioned on the map, Wikipedia articles to be linked to their locations, 3D buildings in (mainly) US cities, user created 3D objects worldwide, live traffic updates in major cities, and customized layers to show just about anything. Then came the ability to view historical aerial photography data, see under the oceans, view the sky, view Mars........ and that's fotgetting the killer add-on - Google Streetview! Unfortunately my home town isn't covered by Streetview yet but I've had a look at other towns nearby and the quality is amazing.

A function which many people don't know about is the flight simulator - by pressing CTRL+ALT+A. It's just a bit of fun but passes the time.

People may have complaints about civil rights, however everything that is on Streetview could be photographed by any member of the public and put on the web anyway. Surely the advantages of such a great FREE software package outweigh any privacy concerns?