New update turns Google Earth into a free storytelling platform

By Shubham Agarwal Published January 18, 2021

Starting with Google Earth’s 2017 redesign, Google has placed a significant focus on the platform’s storytelling capabilities for professionals. After two years, Google is today announcing an update that allows everyone to easily access and operate those tools to create their own stories.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Google Earth’s new creation features let you build stories and presentations that center around various places. You can arrange a series of locations in order and attach elements such as notes, pictures, and annotations to them. When you hit the play button, Google Earth will present it by automatically taking the map through the marked landmarks one by one.

Recommended Videos

In addition, you have the option to draw over the map freehand or by importing a specific shape and customize properties such as the dropped pins’ colors. There’s also the ability to configure the exact 3D view Google Earth should show during the playback.

It functions similarly to the stories available in Google Earth’s Voyager tab. However, those have been produced in collaboration with a number of productions such as BBC Earth. Most of these features were previously accessible to professionals through Google Earth Studio. The new update simply makes them more approachable and requires nothing more than just drag and drop.

The options could come in handy for researchers or students who would be able to employ it for purposes such as history and geography assignments.

“For nearly 15 years, people have turned to Google Earth for a comprehensive view of our planet. But our mission has never been to just show you a static picture of the planet; we want to bring the world to life. With new creation tools now in Google Earth, you can turn our digital globe into your own storytelling canvas,” the company said in a blog post.

The whole experience syncs with your Google Drive account. Apart from letting you resume projects, this enables you to share as well as collaborate on stories with others through an access link. The new features are now rolling out to Google Earth’s web, Android, and iOS apps. You can find these in the Projects tab situated inside the left menu.

Also, if you’re interested to engage more deeply with Google Earth, check out our guide on how to get Google Earth Pro for free.

Shubham Agarwal

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Shubham Agarwal is a freelance technology journalist from Ahmedabad, India. His work has previously appeared in Firstpost…

Topics

Computing

How to change margins in Google Docs

Laptop Working from Home

When you create a document in Google Docs, you may need to adjust the space between the edge of the page and the content -- the margins. For instance, many professors have requirements for the margin sizes you must use for college papers.

You can easily change the left, right, top, and bottom margins in Google Docs and have a few different ways to do it.

Computing

What is Microsoft Teams? How to use the collaboration app

A close-up of someone using Microsoft Teams on a laptop for a videoconference.

Online team collaboration is the new norm as companies spread their workforce across the globe. Gone are the days of primarily relying on group emails, as teams can now work together in real time using an instant chat-style interface, no matter where they are.

Using Microsoft Teams affords video conferencing, real-time discussions, document sharing and editing, and more for companies and corporations. It's one of many collaboration tools designed to bring company workers together in an online space. It’s not designed for communicating with family and friends, but for colleagues and clients.

Computing

Microsoft Word vs. Google Docs

A person using a laptop that displays various Microsoft Office apps.

For the last few decades, Microsoft Word has been the de facto standard for word processors across the working world. That's finally starting to shift, and it looks like one of Google's productivity apps is the heir apparent. The company's Google Docs solution (or to be specific, the integrated word processor) is cross-platform and interoperable, automatically syncs, is easily shareable, and perhaps best of all, is free.

However, using Google Docs proves it still has a long way to go before it can match all of Word's features -- Microsoft has been developing its word processor for over 30 years, after all, and millions still use Microsoft Word. Will Google Docs' low barrier to entry and cross-platform functionality win out? Let's break down each word processor in terms of features and capabilities to help you determine which is best for your needs.
How does each word processing program compare?
To put it lightly, Microsoft Word has an incredible advantage over Google Docs in terms of raw technical capability. From relatively humble beginnings in the 1980s, Microsoft has added new tools and options in each successive version. Most of the essential editing tools are available in Google Docs, but users who are used to Word will find it limited.