Trek the Great Wall of china, take a slide down to South East and enter the Huge Gate of The Forbidden City, jump out and run at the speed of Lightning as you watch out for the white magic in front of the Yamuna in its glorious splendour , go down south to find the great link between Ramayana and Lanka, skittle straight along the Equator to see the Cows grazing in African savannah, pick the largest Irrigation well in South Africa, go boating on Zaire river in Central Africa, Head straight up to climb up the Eiffel Tower and go further North East before London Bridge falls down, hit the tip of Ice berg in Greenland islands, take an expedition to Niks Canadian Rockies before they melt, dig into the Grand Canyon and go for a Manhattan Cruise around Statue of Liberty, Watch Cricket in Bridgetown, get lost in the Amazon Basin, get down at Sao Paulo Airport and take the Ayrton Senna Expressway, Enter the middle Earth zone of LOTR in the scenic New Zealand before you bid adieu.
Phew, I am glad I am not in the days of Jules Verne, I can do it in the comfort of my seat with a Desktop in a matter of just 80 minutes, thanks to the revolution of Information highway from Satellites to Mother Earth and our own Master Blaster Google Earth.
Google Earth has grown in leaps and bounds since the early days last year with such amazing detail and resolution that you are always traveling round & round the Google Earth in a kind of addiction that can only be matched by MS. The lighter Beta version, amazing imagery thanks to Penguin Opus and the huge list of online Browsers and their credits to GE has made the site a gazing site for hours longer than the Cows in the Country.
Peep into Mother Earth.
Enter Google Earth Home and you hardly realize what is in store and the Free Earth downloader will make you jump out of the Earth and install the Globe which rotates for you with its MB size lighter than your paper weight Globe.
The first thing which you would love to see on GE is your Home, go straight to your city and if you are lucky enough (You live in major Cities), you can go and watch your Home at a height of 300-500 metres. Jump start to ride to your office on your desktop. You realize that you have been seeing this every day. Don’t blow horn and take your time, if you could not make it the first time. Who said only God sees from the top. Now you have realized that there are more routes to your office because Birds have started envying you. Click on the ruler and plot the path from Home to office on all routes and you end up knowing that you have lost more fuel because of straight sightedness.
My boy, this swimming pool is just round the corner of my colony. I have been searching for an open playing ground in Concrete Jungle of Hyderabad for months and this GE does it in a jiffy. Check out the blue hues of the beautiful rivers, the sandy lumes of Sahara and the sizzling back waters of GOC with just one tool – a tiny mouse.
GE-Aam admi’s GPS Pathfinder
(Borrowed from friendly neighbourhood AA of MS)
I used to have torrid time getting back to Airport from Church gate, Vashi or Mulund in Mumbai for flight back to Hyderabad because we got struck in beelines of Mumbai. GE has improved its imagery to a Bird’s height of 300 metres from the Mother , now I know whether to catch the Linking road or Western express way & drive through Sion or Powai from Navi Mumbai.
Click the Ruler on the GE Menu and go to Path. From your origin point to destination, sketch the Path. Try the same on Route 2.You know exactly how many Kms you sketch on all routes. You also see many alternate routes so clearly. Take B & W prints of the final route and go happy driving the Aam admi way without the aid of GPS. If you want to go one step further what you get is GE plus with enhanced networks and GPS data imports and annotations for 20 $.
Google Earth Community (bbs.keyhole.com) –A great place to loaf around
Most of us have been called Loafers by Parents in childhood because we never knew the way back home. If you want to spend endless hours loafing around Mother Earth, just sign up for GE community. There are million loafers with whom you can join free and explore the great Locations of the world on top of rev.
Well, before that keep making place marks of all the locations that has caught your eye and then, post them in GE community. It is as simple as writing rev in MS. I have more than 300 place marks on this amazing Planet which include Krishna raja Sagar, Mahabalipuram, Hampi and lots more. When you post them in GE community, make sure that they are unique and new experience for viewers.
For professional users, you have Google Earth Pro and Keyhole Markup Language (KML) – A perfect interface to GE.
Virtual Earth Vs Google Earth –Like Chalk and Cheese
Microsoft introduced Virtual Earth to counter Google Earth with three dimensional mapping of the Earth and has ended up as a colonial cousin of GE with lack of depth and resolution and more of a three dimensional Jinx of Uncle Sam.
Future of GE- Great and enlightening
As of now, even 3D googles does not give you the feel of Great Heights of Himalayas or Eiffel Tower, good enough to catch bridges, flyovers and grounded WTC. In the near future, it will not be a dream. Forget about all those who say that GE is going to cause worldwide military and terror repercussions.The elements will always find their elements.
Keep gazing your dream destinations of the world until after few years, watching people walking up the Great Wall live will not be a dream.
Thanks for reading. Happy G Earthing.
PS: For ardent Google earth lovers, Do find the two places in the two pics in the rev.(not by enlarging the pic, by finding it in GE)