The new GE 4 beta came out last night with the new time slider gadget. This lets you create a KML file with time tags in the placemarks. So, if you have a GPS track you can animate the progression of the track interactively. Google has posted an example of the Whaleshark GPS track from last summer.

If you have the new GE 4 Beta (v 4.0.2080) you can load the example file right here.

The time slider gadget is very cool (you only see this when a time-based KML file is loaded in your Places). It appears in the upper right left of the nav gadget. Here's a screenshot of the new gadget:



The interface is very intuitive. I suggest you just load the example file above and play with it after you run and download the new GE 4 Beta.

This comes from a story written today at Google Earth Blog which also provides links with details on the new GE 4 Beta, new GE layers, and new GE satellite photos. Google has been very busy! And they have kept me really busy this week....whew!