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EarthBrowser, a sky-high view of the world's weather
Ever wanted to know what the Earth looks like from the stars? EarthBrowser gives you the birds-eye view (should that be the astronauts-eye view?) of Planet Earth. Zoom in on weather conditions around the planet and have the whole world at the end of your fingertips!
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EarthBrowser is a weather monitoring agent which allows you to keep track of weather events in the cities and countries of your choice.
Rotate the Earth like a puppet on a string
Produced by Lunar Software, EarthBrowser is available both for Windows and Macintosh, including Mac OS-X. After downloading a relatively lightweight file, it is easy to install and there is a clear, easy-to-read manual which presents EarthBrowser's features in detail. It is however necessary to have QuickTime to visualize the images, but it can be installed automatically if necessary. The first thing that strikes you is the beauty of the Earth as seen from a satellite, as it spins peacefully on its axis. Using the "Hand" tool, you are able to rotate the Earth to the location of your choice, and zoom in or out at will, as if it was a puppet on a string. Cities are indicated by little yellow dots, and as you zoom in more and more cities become visible. Clicking on the weather icon by a city's name brings up details of the current temperature and weather conditions, as well as a five-day weather forecast. Other available display options are cloud cover, shadows representing night and day around the world, recent earthquakes and volcanic activity and live web cams. These last two features are not part of the application itself, but appear as external links in a new window.
Get personalized weather information from around the world
 Besides updating weather information regularly (hourly, or every few hours, depending on the feature), EarthBrowser offers interesting ways of personalizing your view of the globe and the information that is delivered. You can decide which cities are visible and when - from outer space or only up close - and which ones should display a five-day forecast. You can save your preferred views, and add new cities to the list of 450 already known by EarthBrowser. The only information available for your new additions is the local time, however. The demo version has good quality pictures of the Earth from a distance, though only the pay version offers high-resolution close-up shots of the different countries, which also requires significant extra RAM.
EarthBrowser has a triple role: it provides useful weather information for the regular traveler or the plain curious, it is an amusing and novel way to look at the planet Earth, and it can be a valuable interactive way for children to discover the Earth's geography and weather patterns. Its attractive presentation and simplicity of use make it readily accessible to all publics. After trying EarthBrowser, you will never look at the Earth in the same way again!
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