Google Maps gets 3D Earth View

Web browsers haven’t exactly been standing still either. As their capacity to handle richer applications has steadily grown, our ability to bring Google Earth online has grown along with it. In 2008, we released the Google Earth Plugin to developers, and since then thousands of sites have used it to create many cool applications and even games. Now the time has come to take off the plugin’s online training wheels and roll it out on the main stage: Google Maps. So if you’re one of the hundreds of millions of people who use Maps worldwide, you can now explore the world in luxuriantly-detailed, data-rich 3D imagery and terrain from Google Earth. If you’ve already downloaded the Google Earth Plugin, you should be able to see Earth view in Maps right away. Otherwise, you can just install the Plugin to enjoy a Maps experience that includes angled Earth views, 3D buildings, smooth panning and zooming and a great introductory showcase of places to visit and things to see.