Today Google updated the Geographic Web layer. In particular, the Panoramio photo placemarks sub-layer has over 4 times as many photos (from 80,000 to over 400,000). Because of the increased exposure since the Geographic Web Layer came out, thousands of people have loaded more photos for places all over the world. Check out Eduardo’s blog post with details about the update (Eduardo is one of the founders of the Panoramio service). Eduardo says they hope to update more frequently (the last update was early January), but they have been growing so fast they have been dealing with scalability issues. I just did a spot check and there are indeed a lot more photos to peruse. I haven’t yet confirmed whether the Best of GEC and Wikipedia sub-layers were also substantially updated. I’ll try to get some details next week.
About Frank Taylor
Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.
Looking for an overall improvement over the original Google Earth. The new Google Earth Plus had been real bad since I purchased it last year. Should I remove all of the old updates and start all over again, or can you download and make corrections. The images I used to get when free were great. Now they are all out of focus. Hope I can get some help. I really enjoyed touring the Earth and zooming in on houses and buildings of places, friends houses etc. as before when it was free.
Stephen,
It sounds like your GE cache file has corrupted, try logging out (in the File Menu) then goto the Cache Tab in Options and select delete/clear cache. Log back in, and try again.
Also you should download the latest version of the program anyway, goto earth.google.com and get it from there.
For more information try the new Google Earth Support groups.
http://groups.google.com/group/earth-help
Barry