Google Earth 4.3 To Launch, KML Becomes Open Standard

According to the Google Earth Blog, Google Earth version 4.3 (free) is coming later today. Among the upgrades and improvements are faster load times for 3D buildings, day/night lighting, new navigational options, and StreetView images. (Google has also just started to let StreetView on to third party sites.)

In addition, as the Google LatLong Blog reports, KML (which originally stood for “Keyhole Markup Language”) has now become an accepted open standard, which joins GeoRSS. KML has been formally accepted by the international body, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), and Google no longer literally owns it.

Michael Weiss-Malik, KML Product Manager, says in the post, “Fundamentally, our interest is not to control information, but rather to encourage its spread.” The spread of that information has already extended to Google competitor Microsoft Virtual Earth, which has started to include KML files in Live Search Maps.

Separately, the Google Blog is reporting that YouTube videos can be uploaded to Google Maps. This has been true for some time, however.