LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Google Earth
built 658 days ago
Downside: Unfortunately, Google Earth's high detail seems to be mainly centered on the United States; satellite imagery outside of the country is irregular. One example is in Melbourne, Australia, where half of downtown is crisp, and the other half is a blur. The free version lacks drawing tools and GPS data import; the Plus version adds these for $20. Also, Google Earth is only for Windows 2000 and XP.
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The Google Earth browser is a separate application from your web browser. As of July 16, 2006, the current stable version (v.3) runs on both Windows 2000/XP and Mac OSX (10.3.9 and higher). A beta version (v.4) runs on Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux platforms. The Google Earth browser can be downloaded from http://earth.google.com/.
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Google Earth puts a planet's worth of imagery and other geographic information right on your desktop. View exotic locales like Maui and Paris, as well as points of interest such as local restaurants, hospitals, and schools. Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps, and the power of Google Search to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips. With Google Earth you can fly from space to your neighborhood--just type in an address and zoom right in, search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels. Get driving directions, tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings, save and share your searches and favorites and even add your own annotations.
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Google Earth contains a number of errors. Most conspicuously, altitudes are often inaccurate (mostly under-measured); e.g. on Mount Everest (8,844 m) the highest point locatable on Google Earth is only 8,591 m, a shortfall of 253 m. At some points, the sea is not given a default altitude of 0 m (particularly when zoomed out to small scale), with e.g. −50 m in the Pacific Ocean just west of San Diego, or +200 m near Dubrovnik, Croatia. Conversely, the Dead Sea (altitude 417.5 m below sea level) is given as a default 0 m altitude; the same applies to other depressions including Death Valley. Some of the photographs do not abut well, leading to displacements, e.g at the west end of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge on the Bosporus. Other photographs are taken from different angles, leading to buildings peculiarly tilted into each other (conspicuous in e.g. Manhattan just west of the Brooklyn Bridge). Some of the place name tags are ... inaccurately positioned, e.g. the red name tags for Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead are both about 2 km north of their correct positions.
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In Google Earth v4.2, a flight simulator was included as a hidden feature. It can be accessed by holding Control+Alt+A or Control+A at the same time. It can be accessed on Mac OS X by holding Command+Option+A. After this feature has been activated at least once it appears under the tools menu. As of right now the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the Cirrus SR-22 are the only aircraft that can be used, in addition to a few airports.[34]
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The 3D nature of Google Earth navigation can be used to good advantage in displaying and exploring actual high-energy cosmic-ray events recorded by the Observatory. An example of such an event is shown in the following screenshot:
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Google Earth