Google Earth v9 released today

Google Earth version 9

Google has today launched version 9 of Google Earth for the Chrome browser and Android.

Google say in their blog post about the launch that it has been 2 years in the making and, as you would expect, comes with some new bells and whistles.

The best one is the new Voyager option, which takes you on a virtual trip to various parts of the globe complete with information cards and videos.

Google have also integrated some of their search capabilities. You can now search for items such as “capital of Portugal” and Earth will zoom in to Lisbon, for instance.

If you want to learn something new, an “I feel lucky” option will take you to a random place and give you information cards about it. The whole product seems much more geared towards education.

For general use – seeing where you live (be honest, who doesn’t look for their home first?), finding an address, or getting an overview of an area – the visuals are cleaner, loading times faster and the 3D models of cities have improved.

Google say they are working on versions for iOS and other browsers.