Google Earth quadruples images

Google has upgraded one of its flashier products, the Google Earth mapping application, with a revamped user interface and a larger index of images, the company said Monday.

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Google Earth's index of high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery has been quadrupled, the company said. Google Maps, the online mapping service, will begin tapping into this expanded index soon, which will boost the Google Local business-listings.

For the first time, Google Earth is now available for the Linux operating system, in addition to Windows and Mac OS. And it now comes in Spanish, Italian, German and French versions.

A more streamlined user interface includes new tools to create and display content generated by users and external applications -- a nod to the popular practice of encouraging users and external developers to extend their services and products with contributions such as plug-ins, applications, tags and reviews.

Google Earth supports the creation of textured building drawings with the Google SketchUp application for creating, viewing and modifying 3D images.

And the Google Maps application programming interface (API) can tie address data into applications that use Google Maps. Google also unveiled a fee-based license for businesses interested in tapping Google Maps for Web or internal applications on Monday.

Google Earth is one of the company's most successful products, garnering acclaim from users and industry observers alike. There have been more than 100 million unique downloads of the application in the past year.

The free, downloadable application taps into a multiterabyte database of satellite images and, with a video-game-like interface, lets users travel around the world, virtually flying from destination to destination and zooming in and out of cities.

Google acquired the software in 2004 when it bought Keyhole Corp. The Google Earth product family also includes more advanced, fee-based versions of the free application designed for commercial uses.

The Google Earth upgrade, version 4 of the application, is being released in beta, or test, form, at http://earth.google.com. Google Maps API information is at http://www.google.com/apis/maps/.