I’m sure you are all familiar with the various satellite image services out there. I’ve used Google Maps before on the blog. Microsoft has Virtual Earth. There are also other sites out there. The problem is, you usually need to load each site and then search separately on each site for locations. If you visit FlashEarth.com you will find a site that lets you easily switch between the different mappings services.
Looking at this screen capture (which isn’t the best since it is so small), you can see a picture of Niagara Falls. The bottom right corner has a search field. The top right corner has a slider where you can zoom in and out. The top left corner contains a list of the different mapping services. This is the cool part. This picture was from Google Maps. All you have to do is click on Microsoft Virtual Earth and the exact same location will be loaded from that site. You don’t have to navigate away to the site. Just click on the different service and it will load in the same window. This lets you easily compare the maps and choose the one that has the best view.
So, other than the Niagara Falls picture above, I checked out the Niagara SkyWheel. I usually use Google Maps, and as you can see, they are still showing the old Golden Griddle.
But using FlashEarth, you can easily switch to Microsoft Virtual Earth, and you can see that they obviously have more up-to-date satellite images. The SkyWheel is there. Cool!
