Explore and learn

Google Earth not only displays satellite images but it also includes terrains and 3D reconstruction of buildings. You can look for directions and businesses, just like in Google Maps and pinpoint areas or draw on maps straight in Google Earth.

Google Earth includes a very wide, and constantly increasing library of layers, which you can add to the map to enrich your experience. You'll find all sorts of information, from historical landscapes to national parks, regions where you can find endangered species or tourist spots. Google Earth will also showcase more news related information such as forest fires or tsunamis.

But Google Earth is not limited to terrain, and with every new version, it adds new sources of satellite imagery and information about other areas in the world. Say you're really into stars; then you should turn to the Sky mode and navigate among the constellations. Or, if you prefer exploring the seas, enable the Water surface option and learn all the secrets about oceans and marine creatures. Feeling more adventurous? Select the Moon or the Mars options and take a walk in space without leaving your easy chair. What's more, Google Earth also lets you travel in time by providing you with a new Historical Imagery function that allows you to see the evolution of certain locations during the past few years.

Navigation

Moving around in Google Earth is incredibly intuitive thanks to the multiple navigation tools. Some areas will show less information than others, and Google Earth is known to use up a substantial amount of bandwidth, but it remains a fascinating piece of software

Conclusion

Google Earth is as of yet an unequaled application. Browse around the world, zoom into streets, gaze at the stars or dive into the ocean. Millions of possibilities.

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Earth3D grabs spatial imagery from NASA, USGS, CIA and other resources and displays them on a simply-designed interface. You can change between different views and locations by using the categorized list on the left side of the interface, while viewing images themselves on the right side. While the virtual trip in Earth3D can be quite fun, bear in mind that this is no Google Earth, so don't expect to be able to see your home from outer space.

Earth3D features some interesting extras such as the ability to capture images or even record a small video while you're moving around the Earth or zooming in and out – just with your mouse. However, there's one big problem that prevented us from giving Earth3D a better score, and that is its incredible slowness when loading pictures.

Earth3D includes a beautiful collection of images from our planet in 3D perspective, but unfortunately takes way too long to display them.

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If Bing Maps isn't to your fancy and you want Google maps on your Windows 8 or RT device, G Maps will give you that, but with a lot of compromises. Opening G Maps will show you basic map data that it sources from Google Maps. You can toggle between different views like satellite and topography.

You'll notice that G Maps has the ability to find directions for you too. Unfortunately, they don't work. Whenever we tried looking up directions, G Maps would crash consistently, rendering this feature useless. There is also no traffic information of any kind.

Also noticeably lacking from G Maps is detailed information about points of interest. You tapping or clicking on a point of interest will pull up basic information but is not nearly as rich of an experience as Google Maps in the browser. G Maps is as useful as a paper map. At least the paper map doesn't crash.

With so many features lacking and stability issues, it's impossible to recommend G Maps over the included Bing Maps.

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Based on Adobe Air, AccuWeather.com Stratus is a neat looking transparent widget that floats on your desktop wherever you drag it. Clicking the calendar button opens a simple five day forecast, which can be toggled between night and day, Fahrenheit and Celsius.

Settings allows you to choose a location, although AccuWeather.com Stratus only allows you to have one at a time. A saved list of locations would be nice. You can also choose between white and black text, depending on what's easier to read over your background.

AccuWeather.com Stratus is a simple but effective weather widget for your desktop.

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It allows you to create journey schedules, and drag and drop part of a route onto another section of road to create a detour. Key features include points of interest are easy to browse and add to your journey.

On or offline, Microsoft AutoRoute Europe 2010 gives you detailed door-to-door directions and more than 5 million miles of navigable roads and motorways throughout Europe at your fingertips.

AutoRoute Europe 2010 features updated maps for 37 countries across Eastern and Western Europe. It allows you to find your way quickly and easily by entering an address, postcode or place to get maps and step-by-step directions for your journey. You can add multiple stops, points of interest (POI), and start and stop times. Plus there are flexible trip planning options like custom start times, driving speeds and rest breaks.

The amount of customization options in AutoRoute Europe 2010 is what makes it most impressive. You can tailor your trips by driving speeds, road types to avoid motorways, or choose a more scenic route. Most importantly for some users, you can find points of interest and inspiration for destinations without an Internet connection. Finally, you can add push-pins to mark places of interest and optimize your trip by calculating mileage, time, and expenses in advance.

The main downside is that AutoRoute Europe 2010 requires three different files to install, two of which are more than 1GB.

AutoRoute Europe 2010 is a highly customizable travel planner for those that don't have access to an internet connection or SatNav.

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Despite its confusing name, Sun Times works as a kind of world atlas of human geography, displaying all sorts of information about each country in the world. The first image you get is a world map with the current day/night light scheme, so that you can check the time of any location in the world. But that's not all: Sun Times also displays details such as sunrise and sunset times, latitude and longitude of the most important cities and even pictures of famous monuments and landmarks.

The program's extended options enable you to check on climate, astronomic data and airline routes, although sometimes the map is just too small for the amount of information to be displayed. In fact, sometimes Sun Times just overwhelms you with so much data.

On the downside, I missed the possibility to export all this information into an easier-to-read format. In spite of that, I found Sun Times very interesting, especially for educational purposes.

Despite its confusing interface, Sun Times is a great tool to learn more about many countries in the world and other geographical and astronomical data.

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However, Google's groundbreaking Earth navigation application isn't the only option out there, as Marble proves. Marble is a virtual globe and World atlas that allows you to learn more about the Earth. It enables you to pan and zoom around the planet, inspect landmarks, places and roads, and is enlivened by lots of useful links to Wikipedia articles.

You can do all the standard things like measure distances, lay down place markers and obtain coordinates for a specific location. One nice little feature is that you can also observe the cloud cover in a particular location and even lay 'filters' over the globe. These include a topographic map, satellite view, street map, Earth at night, and temperature maps. Marble has therefore clearly been designed more with educators and classrooms in mind than Google Earth.

The downside of Marble is that it's rather selective in the regions it covers. Western countries are annotated and illustrated in great detail, while the rest of the world - especially the southern hemisphere - is lacking in information.

Marble is an interesting alternative to Google Earth that's completely free to use and ideal for educators.

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You can easily integrate maps into your Office projects to show your business insights with clarity.

Plus, get updated maps of the US and Canada, with trip routing, turn-by-turn directions, and the ability to share routes with your GPS device

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While the default Windows Maps application in Windows 8 works fairly well for looking up addresses and getting directions, its traffic feature left much to be desired. Inrix Traffic brings a more fleshed-out traffic interface for Windows 8 tablets. It shows the traffic on surface streets, something that Windows Maps doesn't do.

Intrix Traffic has a snappy interface with maps that draw and redraw quickly. When browsing the map in Intrix Traffic, there are icons which indicate the type of traffic congestion around the area. For example, a cluster of cars will indicate some traffic slowdown, while a caution symbol will indicate road closures or traffic accidents. Inrix Traffic also takes into account events that can affect traffic and provides a useful traffic forecast.

While Inrix Traffic is great for glancing at traffic conditions, it doesn't provide search or directions, which is a major bummer as they are available on the mobile apps for iPhone and Android. We would like to see a search feature and integration with a service like Yelp to look up businesses.

While Inrix Traffic is good for browsing traffic conditions, it isn't going to be truly useful until it integrates search and directions.

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There are three types of quizzes: cities, countries and flags. You have no time limit and can skip a question if you don't know the answer. And if you're feeling really smart, you can decide to take on the world and have questions coming from any continent. With a quizz on the American States, World of Where is directed specifically towards US users. Try it out and see how much you know about geography.

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