Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Google Earth Now Has 80 Million Beautiful Trees [Video]

Google Earth Now Has 80 Million Beautiful Trees [Video]

Google Earth Now Has 80 Million Beautiful TreesSay Hello to Google Earth 6, complete with 80 million freshly planted 3D-modeled trees. I never really pay much attention to real life trees, but for some reason this strikes me as indescribably awesome.

Google Earth Now Has 80 Million Beautiful Trees

I really can't put my finger on it, why exactly I'm so impressed by all the new plant life in Google Earth—the updated software has roughly 80 million ofin 50 different species in San Francisco, Tokyo, Athens and other cities—but impressed I am. The buildings and streets and topography of Google Earth—all those things are pretty essential, I'd say, when you're trying to recreate our planet. But something about mapping nearly 100 million trees seems delightfully superfluous, Google at its most obsessive and weird and awesome.

Anywho, Google Earth 6 also lets you dive seamlessly into Street View mode, further blurring the line between the real world and the one Google has meticulously recreated with pixels.

Google Earth 6 is available for download now. And what can we expect after all of these trees? Probably leagues of 3D-modeled conservationists. [Google via TechCrunch]