Google Pushes to Make Browser Applications More Powerful
Google has been a leading proponent of Web-based computing — software that is delivered over the Internet and typically runs inside a browser. But most browser applications cannot do many of the things that more powerful PC-based software can.
Google has been trying to help close that gap.
On Wednesday, Google touted the fruits of its efforts on two fronts at the company’s annual conference for software developers, which is taking place in San Francisco.
Google said that it has opened to third-party developers the programming interfaces to Google Earth, the company’s 3-D visualization software. That will allow developers to embed Google Earth on their Web sites, much like they already can do with Google Maps.
Google noted that more than 150,000 sites have created applications using Google Maps to do things like pinpointing the locations of crimes or apartment rentals in various cities, displaying the path of airplanes in flight and helping users calculate the distance they travel on their urban walks. Those same sites will be able to enhance those applications through Google Earth’s richer visualization software. And other developers will be able to take advantage of Google Earth’s 3-D imaging to create new applications to run on their sites.
- From NYTimes