One great feature of this release is the fact that users can track their travels via a GPS device and save the results as a KML file to be viewed in the application at a later time. The example given is a look at the route taken to climb a mountain; however, the same tool can be used to track marathons, sailing regatas, road trips and basic travel. For information on how to convert GPS data into Google Earth, users can visit Google's KML Support Section. If you haven't already downloaded the application, you can do so here.

Once you have created your model, it has to go through an approval process and, if accepted, will be added to Google Earth. Sadly, there is no way to see if another model of the same building already exists except for loading up Google Earth, but even then, you can't be sure that somebody else's model isn't already waiting for approval.

Overall, this looks like a very smart way for Google to enhance the 3D experience in Google Earth and it will be interesting to see if Google will also build more services on top of these 3D-rendered cities at a later point.

It also shows that Google has access to a vast repository of aerial photography of all of these locations. Microsoft's Bing Maps highlights this feature in its bird's eye mode, but Google doesn't surface any of these images yet.

Google Earth 5 also offers touring with voice recording so teachers can actually walk students through a voyage's route prior to viewing the expedition layer. To check out this tool download the KML file and open it in Google Earth. For the latest news on National Geographic's Ocean Now Expedition to Cocos Island and the Gemelas Seamounts, you can also check out the Google blog guest post by Sylvia Earle.

Photo Credit: Arctic Ocean Exploration Cruise

After Mars, the moon is the second planet in Google Earth's repertoire, and it shows how extensible the software really is. Just a few months ago, Google also unveiled the Ocean layer in Google Earth, which gives users access to an area that we probably know even less about than Mars and the moon.

For World Oceans Day, Google has come to the rescue with a cool collection of visualization apps that use Google Earth to encourage analysis of the big blue. According to last night's post on the Google LatLong Blog, "To help get our heads around the watery part of our planet, we've collected a few visualizations of both issues facing the ocean and cutting edge science. Have a look at the problem of plastics in our oceans, find out about where currents might take your trash, the health of the world's fisheries, and what the latest satellite data says about the state of the ocean."

According to Google, this makes visualization apps even more important to our understanding and protection of the world's oceans. The related Google Apps page also shows a news ticker with World Oceans Day items and a custom search box in the upper right to find content from partner sites.

The apps show sea surface height, sea surface wind, areas of overfishing, oceanic currents, and other non-Google Earth projects that graphically illustrate marine pollution.

The Google team has also curated a collection of relevant videos on YouTube. While some of the whales/sharks/fish vids make for pretty interesting browsing for fans of shows such as Planet Earth, others serve as graphic and sad reminders of humans' impact on the oceans.

A new app, Map the Fallen, gathers and aggregates information on war casualties in the Middle East from U.S. and coalition nations, giving dead servicemembers' names, ages, pictures, hometowns, places of death, and the cause or incident of death.

There are links to memorial sites where users can sign guestbooks, leaving comments about the departed. The app also includes links to releases from the Department of Defense and local obituaries or other press coverage, when available. Map the Fallen allows users to "fly" around the globe from the dead soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine's hometown to the place where he or she was killed. Users can also use the timeline feature to visualize how many casualties occurred at any one time or during any period of time from 2001 to the present day.

The map also includes icons pointing out places, books, news articles, photos, or other data that are geographically relevant.

Users can also record and save video "tours" of available data.

Undoubtedly somber, probably (for most of us) unbearably sad, the project is the result of four years' work by Sean, who develops geospatial content for the Google Earth Outreach team.

Features

As you would expect, the app allows you to search for restaurants, nightlife, shopping, and even services like nail salons and barbers, but what makes it stand out is the extremely smooth 3D view of the city. The app uses the standard iPhone gestures for zooming and tilting the 3D map. The best way to get a good feel for the app without paying $2.99 is to watch this video.

Sadly, though, the city looks a bit bleak and could use a bit more color once you zoom in. This doesn't take away from the functionality of the app, though.

In addition to aggregating data about the city, UpNext also crowdsources its reviews and images from businesses. Users can also easily rate businesses and write their own reviews on the phone.

Smooth Scroller

UpNext, of course, has the advantage of only covering a small area, and most of the data is cached on the phone, so unlike Google Earth, UpNext doesn't have to load its map tiles from the Internet.

(tip of the hat to CultofMac for pointing us to this app)

Thanks to the new layers for the ocean floor, you can now dive below the surface and explore the seafloor in 3D. Google has also added a large number of additional data points with videos and still images to these new layers.

Historical Maps

The new 'historical maps' feature allows you to see how the geography of a certain area has changed over time. Just click on the new clock icon in the toolbar and a new slider appears that lets you move back and forth in time. Google is able to draw upon a rich database of historical images, though how far you can go back in time depends on the specific region you are looking at. At least of the U.S. and Europe, we were often able to go back twenty or more years, but for other areas, the data often didn't go back much further than five or six years.

Touring

Another new feature in Google Earth is the ability to record your own tours while browsing the maps. After clicking the new record button, all your movements in Google Earth will be recorded and you can then play them back later or share them with others.

Mars

Also new is a 3D map of Mars, which includes high-resolution images from NASA, 3D terrain data, and annotations for landing sites and other interesting features. Google already offered a version of Google Maps for Mars and the Google Earth user community has been offering a Mars layer for Google Earth since 2006.

"The paintings have been photographed in very high resolution and contain as many as 14,000 million pixels (14 gigapixels). With this high level resolution you are able to see fine details such as the tiny bee on a flower in The Three Graces (Las Tres Gracias), delicate tears on the faces of the figures in The Descent from the Cross (El Descendimiento ) and complex figures in The Garden of Earthly Delights (El Jardin de las Delicias)."

For example, let's take Hieronymus Bosch - whose work is famous for minute detail and interesting interpretations of all sorts of creepy crawlies - and "The Garden of Eartly Delights" mentioned above. Below, the main image represents the painting with the level of detail you would likely be able to see if you were physically standing in the museum. The inset is how close we were able to get with Google Earth.

Now, much in the same way Google Earth has given us breathtaking views of some of the most remote areas of our planet, we're able to explore some of the most relevant cultural works with incredibly precise detail.

It wasn't easy, but it certainly was worth it. The video below will give you an idea of the amount of technology it took to bring this feature to Google Earth.

Get Closer to Your Favorite Masterpieces

To access the pieces from The Prado, turn on 3D buildings in Google Earth. Then fly to "Prado Museum Spain." You can choose to wander around the museum or click on the collection icon to peruse the available works.

And, this brings us to the end of your tour. Feel free to spend some time in the museum. The gift shop is to your right.

For 2008, Google has included a few more jingle bells and whistles. You can track St. Nicholas from your phone with Google Maps for mobile by activating the service and searching for "norad santa." And what 2008 holiday would be complete without a Twitter entity? You can also get tweets from Santa by following @noradsanta.

Even if you're not into celebrating Xmas, this spectacle showcases an interesting application of available technology - and a test for scalability as millions of users pummel the Google servers for information on Mr. C. Stepping back, this always leads me to wonder what would happen if this same type of thinking were applied to other quandaries of tracking and informing the public. Using all of these methods to track Santa Claus could prove very informative for any number of applications.

But enough of that Grinch/Scrooge thinking.

This marks the fourth year Google has participated in the tracking effort. And there's a great backstory to the Santa-tracking tradition at Google.

This seems to be as good of a time as any for us to say, "Thank you." Happy holidays from all of us here at ReadWriteWeb. All the best to you and yours. And whether you're among those who are hoping for a visit from Santa Claus or not, may all of your wishes come true - and if they don't, you'll know where to track down the big guy, thanks to Google.

Photo "Santa Claus" by Grzegorz Łobiński used under Creative Commons

As the Google Earth team points out, this is the first time that Google has included an ancient city in Google Earth. Of course, there have been a good number of other projects that have reconstructed ancient cities in 3D, but very few of these are accessible over the web.

Google also announced a curriculum competition in conjunction with the release of this new layer. Six K-12 educators who create the most interesting curricula based around the Ancient Rome 3D layer will receive new Mac laptops, classroom projectors, and a digital camera.

Note: this layer was supposed to be widely available by now, but so far, it does not seem to be appear in Google Earth yet.

Bonus: if you want to see what the future of 3D maps might look like, have a look at this model of Oslo.

There is no denying it, Google Earth on the iPhone is a gorgeous application and thanks to the multi-touch interface, it's extremely easy to use. Besides bringing the basic Google Earth features to the phone, the iPhone app also displays links to Wikipedia articles and photos from Panoramio. Because Google integrated a browser into the app, you can seamlessly jump back and forth between the app and the web content.

Of course, the app also makes use of the iPhone's GPS, though the lack of street names on the satellite images still gives the standard Google Maps application an edge over Google Earth for navigation.

The Bad

Somehow, Google thought that it would be a good idea for the app to zoom in from space to your last location every time you start the app. This gets old pretty quickly and takes up unnecessary time whenever you start the program.

Also, while Google Earth on the desktop allows you to add various layers with information, the iPhone app doesn't even have the ability to show a layer with street names. To be fair, this is probably due to the limits of the phone's processing power and memory, but it does reduce the usefulness of the app considerably.

Google Earth uses the iPhone's accelerometer to tilt the screen. As long as you are sitting at your desk, this works great, but once you hand your phone to somebody else, the screen will inevitably tilt and move the focus, which can be quite annoying. You can, however, turn this auto-tilt feature off in the settings, but then you lose the ability to tilt the screen altogether.

Verdict

Google Earth on the iPhone is a clear winner. Graphically, it's already a stunning application, and Google will surely add more functionality - like street names - to it in the next few iterations. Of course, just like the desktop application, it is also a great application to just play with when you have a few extra minutes to spare.