Virtual Explorers Of Google Earth

"Google Earth is packed with things that its creators never intended. Paper maps are a cartographer's rendering of the world, whereas digital versions in Google Earth, Google Maps and Microsoft's Live Search Maps are more like sophisticated collages - moments captured by cameras on satellites and airplanes, seamlessly blended to create a digital world.

If inspected very closely, these photos from on high sometimes reveal life going on when the shutter opened and closed: airplanes in flight, surfers off Malibu, mourners congregating in a Chicago cemetery, a Boston Red Sox game underway at Fenway Park, a cement truck overturned in San Francisco."

"The Google Earth Community and independent enthusiast sites such as Google Earth Blog, Google Sightseeing and Bird's Eye Tourist serve as repositories for these finds...Unlike famous explorers such as Capt. James Cook, these virtual voyagers can scour the globe with little physical effort or danger. Google Earth covers about 30% of the world's land surface with high-resolution imagery. That's a lot of ground to cover."

"There are many practical uses for Google Earth. Programmers have layered housing data on maps so that renters or home buyers can shop from above. Whale sharks, bike racers and professional sailors hooked up to global positioning systems have had their progress tracked as dots moving across the surface of the maps. Amateurs tooling around on Google Earth have found previously undiscovered meteor craters and Roman ruins."