Google Earth updated to version 6.2.1.6014 with some nice improvements

Google Earth updated to version 6.2.1.6014 with some nice improvements:

Over the last few days, Google has been rolling out an update to Google Earth. If you were already on Google Earth 6.2, this update should have been applied to your software automatically.



The main change is a nice improvement to how the Google+ sharing feature works. In the initial version of 6.2, shared items on Google+ would appear as a small thumbnail and link to a larger version. Now it shows a much larger version in your stream, and clicking on it brings up the full-size version in the nice Google+ lightbox.



As an added bonus, this means that your photos can be manipulated in the Google+ "creative kit" for easy cropping, resizing, etc. The one missing piece is an easy way for users to view that imagery for themselves in Google Earth. Perhaps the share button could generate (and link to) a KML file of that location, similar to sites like EarthURL.org do (as mentioned in the comments on this Google+ post).



In addition, there are some changes to the "pretty earth" imagery as part of this update, in particular the rendering of the shallow waters of the Bahamas. The Bahamas waters are a big feature you can see from space. In the past, Google showed the darker blue bathymetry instead of the actual satellite imagery of the turquoise waters. It looks much more authentic as seen from space now.



bahamas.jpg


All in all, it's a nice little update. It fixes some of the issues with the initial sharing features in 6.2, and it continues to improve the high-level imagery of the earth. Good job Google!