Perhaps you heard a week or two ago that Google had launched a new layer for its Earth utility to display Google News stories. Which we thought was pretty nifty. Earlier still, The New York Times had unveiled its own news layer, too. Well, if those two data feeds weren’t enough, the Australian Broadcasting Company, or ABC, made available this weekend a feature on Google Earth for the convenience of its readership. The download is called ABC Earth, and is intended to connect users to both current and archived stories, as well as photographs and videos.
As we said back in mid-May, Google Earth’s News layer was bound to be an entertaining time waster for news junkies throughout the world. Reading breaking stories while spanning a virtual globe? We were sold. ABC Earth promises fans of Google’s application a similar experience, albeit one with heavy focus on the land down under. And with visual fodder to complement plain text, plus the delivery of news updates every five minutes, there’s little reason not to download the ABC Earth layer. Whether you reside on the continent or simply want a thorough reach of news when using Google Earth, this is definite one package worth adding to your collection.