Google Earth

                  Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a company acquired by Google in 2004.The product, re-released as Google Earth in 2005, is currently available for use on personal computers running Windows 2000 and above, Mac OS X 10.3.9 and above, Linux kernel: 2.6 or later (released on June 12, 2006), and FreeBSD. Google Earth is also available as a browser plugin which was released on May 28, 2008. It was also made available for mobile viewers on the iPhone OS on October 28, 2008, as a free download from the App Store, and is available to Android users as a free app on the Android Market.

Hardware and software Requirements
            Google Earth is unlikely to operate on older hardware configurations. The most recent system requirements update document these minimum configurations:

• Pentium 3, 500MHz
• 256 Megabytes of RAM
• 400 MB free disk space
• Network speed: 128 kbit/s
• 64MB DirectX9 and 3D capable graphics card
• Resolution of 1024x768, 16-bit High Color - DirectX 9 (to run in Direct X mode)
• Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Linux or Mac OS X

              The most likely cause of failure is insufficient video RAM: the software is designed to warn the user if their graphics card is not able to support Earth (this often occurs due to insufficient Video RAM or buggy graphics card drivers). The next most likely mode of failure is Internet access speed. Fast broadband Internet (Cable, DSL, T1, etc.) is required.

Linux specifications

Minimum System Requirements

• Kernel: 2.4 or later
• CPU: Pentium III, 500 MHz
• System Memory (RAM): 128 MB
• Hard Disk: 400 MB free space
• Network Speed: 128 kbit/s
• Screen: 1024x768, 16 bit color
• Tested and works on the following distributions:

Ubuntu 5.10 or later SUSE 10.1 or later Fedora Core 4 or later Linspire 5.1 Gentoo 2006.0 Debian 3.1/4 Red Hat 9

Slackware 11.0 FreeBSD 6.1/7.0 with Linux Emulation Arch Linux 0.7.2 Duke Xandros 3.0.3 Business Edition Mandriva 2007 Sabayon Linux 3.26 PCLinuxOS 5.0 PC/OS 7.10

Versions and variations

 Release timeline

 

Illustrates timeline of KML and Google Earth history

• Keyhole Earthviewer 1.0 - June 11, 2001
• Keyhole Earthviewer 1.4 - January 1, 2002
• Keyhole Earthviewer 1.6 - February 2003
• Keyhole LT 1.7.1 - August 26, 2003
• Keyhole NV 1.7.2 - October 16, 2003
• Keyhole 2.2 - August 19, 2004
• Google Earth 3.0 - June 28, 2005
• Google Earth 4.0 - June 11, 2006
• Google Earth 4.1 - May 9, 2007
• Google Earth 4.2 - August 23, 2007
• Google Earth 4.3 - April 15, 2008
• Google Earth 5.0 - May 5, 2009
• Google Earth 5.1 - November 18, 2009
• Google Earth 5.2 - July 30, 2010
• Google Earth 6.0 - November 29, 2010

A screenshot of the program is shown below: