Google Sky

Google Earth isn't Earth-bound any more. The latest version of Google Earth (new download required) includes a feature called Sky, which includes high-resolution images of hundreds of millions of stars from more than 200 million galaxies. The images are gathered from a variety of giant telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope.

To switch to Sky mode in Google Earth, click the planet icon on the toolbar. Alternately, pull down the View menu and select Switch to Sky. Click on any point in the sky to zoom into a closer image, and to display information about that star, planet, or galaxy.

New Picasa Features

Picasa is one of my favorite Google applications, and Google has just released a new, updated version of the photo-editing program. New features include:

• Picasa Web Albums, for sharing photos with others over the web
• Save feature for saving photo edits for use in other programs
• Convert time-lapse photos into movies
• Search photos by color
• Create screensaver from photos
• Integration with Google Earth, so you can tag your photos with location information or place your photos on a Google Earth map

Check it out!

New Google Earth Content

Google has added a ton of new multimedia content to Google Earth. Go to the Featured Content folder in the Google Earth sidebar, and you'll see links to content from National Geographic magzine, the Discovery Network, the National Park Service, and other parties. It's fun and interesting stuff, and worth checking out. (You get the content automatically when you start up Google Earth; it's streamed to you live over the Internet.)