ile Maps is far away the most popular tool for traversing the globe, hasn’t forgotten about its other project, Earth. And just in time for Earth Day, is giving it a major upgrade.
In an event at the itney Museum of Art in New York City today, took the wraps off the new Earth project for Android Chrome. The fruits of nearly two years of labor, the new app’s marquee feature, called Voyager, enhances the way you explore the planet, adding tours guided by “some of the world’s leading storytellers, scientists, nonprofits.”
For example, you can now take a journey though through jungles with BBC Earth or learn about chimpanzees in Gombe National rk from ne Goodall. says there are “more than 50 immersive stories in Voyager, more added weekly.” has also added a fun new “I’m feeling lucky” button into Earth, which will take you to a rom locale chosen from some 20,000 curated places. Once you’ve led, a Knowledge Card will teach you history facts about it. Additionally, you’ll now be also to share you favorite places with friends by sending a stcard.
so new to Earth is some serious 3D VR enhancements. ile Daydream support is still notably absent, you can now search in Earth VR explore new places like the Neuschwanstein in Germany, Table Mountain in South Africa, rito o Glacier in Argentina, dozens of others. On the 3D front, you can “swoop around the Gr Canyon see geological layers, or check out the majestic architecture pristine grounds of the 500-year-old Château de Chambord in the ire Valley in .” Earth VR has also exped beyond the HTC Vive to include Oculus Rift support.
The new Earth is available on the web in Chrome is rolling out to Android phones this week. It will hit iOS other browsers “in the near future.”
Out of this world: ile the new Earth features are certainly cool, we were really hoping to see Daydream support for Earth VR. Hopefully will bring support soon, but with both of the platforms supported needing some serious hardware, it might be a while before it comes to a phone-based headset.