The Google Earth blog posted a nice video of the new textured cityscape of Raleigh, NC featuring the Birds Eye overlay. The video looks good, but its so tiny that its difficult to make out the details. You can tell that Frank Taylor, the video's creator, has logged a lot of hours with the SpaceNavigator; his in-city nav skillz look pretty good!

Frank raises an issue with 3D navigation in Virtual Earth:

Using a 3DConnexion SpaceNavigator 3D mouse makes using Virtual Earth much better. I rarely used Virtual Earth until they started supporting it. Microsoft needs to improve the user interface for non-SpaceNavigator owners - or they need to give everyone a SpaceNavigator for Christmas!

Maybe not a Navigator, but i know a lot of Wireless XBOX controllers are going into circulation this yuear :-) Seriously though, I don't work on the 3D team but I know they would appreciate more specific feedback on this issue Frank raised. What about the non-SpaceNavigator navigation controls and experience would you change? email feedback to me at stevelom a t microsoft d com or post in the comments below.

North Carolina Museum of Natural Science in VE3D