TechJournal

Before you start to wonder why it's all Google today, well, there's this Google I/O Conference happening today at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco.  So there's a lot of new stuff Google's unleashing.

Anyway, the I/O conference is a Google hosted event where they invite developers to show them new products they can develop using the Google platform.  These products come in mostly in APIs.

Today's special on the Google menu is the launch of the Google Earth API which allows developers to embed Google Earth maps in 3D  in any site.  This development unties Google Earth from its desktop client and brings the amazing Google-Maps-in-3D-rendering to the  browser.

"Website developers are now able to embed 3D maps, which can be modified using Google’s JavaScript API to add KML data, draw 3D buildings, attach callbacks, and more. The entire embed is powered by a special Google Earth Browser Plugin that end users must install. Unfortunately, it’s only available for Internet Explorer and Firefox users on Windows." [TechCrunch]

However, this re;ease is just for developers, menaing it's just an API.  Regular, interent users will still need to use Google Maps (in 2d) to search the globe.  Moreover, the Google Earth Browser Plugin may not be a step in a browser based Google Earth direction (for the public at least) since Google has already added a lot of Earth features on their Maps.

Anyway, watch the video demo of the API here . 

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