New Google Earth Beta

An amazing new version of Google Earth is now out. It is version 4.3 but it is still in beta. There are some excellent new features that include:

• Time of day. You can select the time of day and the program will adjust the lighting and even create shadows on mountain terrain and buildings.
  
• Weather and clouds. You can turn on layers to show cloud-cover and radar images. When you are at ground level these are realistically rendered above you.
  
• 3D buildings. These are best in US cities. As soon as you zoom to a city simple models appear and then they are rendered with more detail over time. They look very realistic.
  
• Street View. In some cities there are now interactive panoramic photos that you can jump into all along city streets.
  
• Flight simulator. You can now fly around in a jet! I managed to crash mine into the ground.
  

Here is a great video of what it looks like. The original source is the Google Earth Blog. Thanks to the folks at My Tech Opinion where I first found this.

I installed this and my experience was not quite as smooth and seamless as in this movie. In particular I had some issues with the streaming of the images. Detailed images did not appear as I zoomed in. This is still a beta. I would recommend waiting to upgrade until it is fully released.