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What's New in Google Earth 
Each month we highlight the newest additions to the built in Google Earth content. If you haven't been subscribing to Sightseer for long, you might want to check the forum for previous editions.
 Large Imagery Update
- On June 2nd we made a large update to the base-layer imagery for Google Earth. Significant areas have been added or updated: England has nearly the entire country at 50 cm resolution, Germany has new enhanced color mapping, and there are large additions to Sudan, Africa, Australia, and Mexico. Also, there are some new high resolution photos in the Arctic (Greenland) and Antarctica. Read this post for full details on the update.
 New High Resolution Terrain
- Along with the new imagery, we added new high resolution terrain for the western United States and the Canary islands. The new terrain comes from the US Geological Survey and is at 10 meter resolution - which is three to nine times better than our previous data in these regions. There is a
setting in the Google Earth Options (or Preferences on the Mac) under "3D View" which is called "Terrain Quality"
- move the Terrain Quality slider to the right to a higher setting.
Make sure your "Terrain" layer is turned on. Check out the Grand Tetons  in Wyoming for example, or this interesting feature in Buena Vista, Tenerife . Turn the Terrain Quality setting back to a lower setting for better performance.
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Announcements from Google Developer Day
On May 31st we had a Google Developer Day.
The purpose of this event was to bring developers interested in Google application interfaces (APIs) together to learn more about the capabilities and new features available in Google products. We invited developers to Google offices in 10 different countries around the world and held technical sessions on a variety of topics. There are video recordings
available for most of the presentations. We announced several new features of Google Maps and some news on Google Earth:
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Google Maps Street View
- With Street View, you can virtually explore city neighborhoods by viewing and navigating within 360-degree scenes of street-level imagery. It feels as if you're walking down the street! Initially available in five cities in the US, more cities will be available soon.
Check out a video showing Street View in action, or view try Street View now.
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Google Mapplets
- Mapplets are mini-applications that any developer can build on top of the Google Maps site. Essentially, Mapplets are embeddable mashups. You can choose which Mapplets you want, and you can create a mashup of mashups by combining Mapplets with each other or with built-in features of Google Maps, like driving directions and business search – and view it all on the same map. This lets you to customize Maps content to your own personal interests. It also gives publishers a new channel to reach the millions of Google Maps users who are looking for their content. There is more information about Mapplets here, or you can view the preview of Mapplets at maps.google.com/preview/
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Google to Purchase Panoramio - Great news for Google Earth sightseers: Google has agreed to purchase Panoramio, a website that links millions of photos with the exact location where they were taken. Read more about it on the Official Google Blog.
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KML 2.2 (beta) - We have released a preview of the documentation on KML 2.2, which will support new capabilities in future versions of Google Earth and Maps.
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Google Earth Gallery and Gadget
 There is so much wonderful content that our users have created for Google Earth that we could never highlight it all in the Sightseer. So now, we're showcasing these KML files in the new Google Earth Gallery. To see the 6 new user-created KML files highlighted each week, you can either go to the website or add the gallery's Google Gadget to your iGoogle page.
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| Google Earth Weather/Storm Tracking Tools
Want to use Google Earth to see the weather? You can overlay satellite and radar images over the Earth, air and water temperatures, winds, weather fronts, and much more. Many Google Earth Community
members have posted useful tools for showing weather information, including current clouds and hurricane/cyclone tracking tools. Frank Taylor has written about
a number of useful tools for tracking weather, including tropical hurricanes and cyclones at his Google Earth blog. Download a useful collection of weather tools and explore the folders which will appear in your Temporary Places.
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Sounds of the World in Google Earth
 Bernie Krause has spent 40 years collecting sounds of birds, whales, wind, surf, animals, melting glaciers, and many other sounds of nature. He shares samples of his amazing collections from remote areas of the world on his Wild Sanctuary
web site. Listen to African jungles, tropical forests, prairies, oceans, mountaintops, and more. Bernie has recently published a way to both view the locations and listen to the sounds in Google Earth (or Maps). Once you load the Wild Sanctuary sounds file
you can open the folders to find an interesting location. Double click on a placemark to fly there in GE, and then open the placemark with a "Click to Play" icon. This will open your browser to play the sound, but you can go back to view GE while the sound is playing. Thanks to Bernie for adding a new dimension to Google Earth!
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