Google Earth is a free download from Google that offers a unique, interactive, dynamic globe that's created using satellite photos and electronic data from all kinds of resources.  Lets say you want to check out a friend's new house in Washington D.C.  By typing in the address you can zoom right in on a satellite photo of their house that you can move around.  You can then search their neighborhood for restaurants, schools, libraries, gas stations, whatever you want.  But that's not all, next you could add layers to the satellite photo that would tell you things like voting district borders, real time traffic speeds, crime statistics, all kinds of stuff.  You can even find YouTube videos and photos of the neighborhood.  You can even get 3-D renderings of the buildings in the city and, if you go to places like the Grand Canyon you can even view that in 3-D. 

It's an amazing integration of information in an easy to use interactive format that has to be experienced.  And it's probably only going to get better with the launch of GeoEye-1 in September of 2008.  View the tutorial on the left for some basic ideas about what Google Earth looks like.

For a little fun don't forget to try the flight simulator that's in the program.  Once you're in Google Earth press:  CTRL+ALT+A to access it.

 

 

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