Google Earth 4 out of beta

I suppose the camp of Googlians waiting in line for the Stevenote can be forgiven for fleeing the code mines; they recently put the final touches on Google Earth 4, now out of beta.

Shiny new features in the Google Earth revision include:

• Higher quality terrain and building textures

• Expanded KML file support, including timestamps and image overlays

• The sleek new UI, designed to stay out of your way as you flit hither and virtually yon

• Polygon annotation, shareable with other users

You can download the free GE4 application here. Upgrades to Plus ($20/year, higher-res prints, GPS track import, faster performance) and Professional ($400/yr, full-res image export and printing, movie export, GIS and spreadsheet import) are available. The paid versions also let you disable local business advertising, which I'll admit I've never seen in GE; perhaps I'm not visiting the right neighborhoods.