Today, the Mountain View-based company Google has rolled out what seems to be one of the most important releases of Google Earth, namely the 4.3 version. Although it shouldn't be regarded as a major update (Google Earth 5 should, though), this new edition comes with multiple important improvements.

As mentioned earlier, one of the most valuable implementations is the Street View integration in Google Earth. As you surely know, Street View is a Google Maps function which allows users to view street-level panoramas straight from their browser. Well, this update brings the function to another level: it's now possible to view the high-resolution photos straight from your desktop using Google Earth.

The Mountain View company hasn't published a changelog until now, so here are the most important changes in Google Earth 4.3, directly from the source:

￭ New navigation - We've created a new navigational experience so users can better take advantage of the 3D environment in Google Earth. The navigation takes the traditional pan-and-zoom approach associated with mapping programs and incorporates a first-person, ground-level perspective commonly used in video games.

￭ More, faster 3D buildings - Version 4.3 also includes dozens of photo-textured cities and towns, as well as thousands of user-contributed buildings around the world. We've significantly enhanced our approach to rendering 3D data to greatly improve performance and realism of 3D data.

￭ Street View - The well-known Google Maps feature gets added to Google Earth with version 4.3. Street View is a popular, engaging feature that allows people to easily find, discover, and plan activities relevant to a location.

￭ Sunlight feature - This new addition is a playful way to control the sun's location relative to the Earth. When zoomed out to a view of the Earth, you can control a time-lapse view of sunlight moving across the Earth. While zoomed into a given city, you can watch the sunrise and sunset.

￭ Image acquisition date -- One of our most requested features, 4.3 now includes an image acquisition date, which shows you on what date a given area of imagery was taken.

￭ New languages - Version 4.3 includes twelve new languages, including Danish, English (UK), Spanish (Latin American), Finnish, Hebrew, Indonesian, Norwegian, Portuguese (PT), Romanian, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish.

In case you want to download the new release of Google Earth, you can find it right here on Softpedia. In addition, have a look at the pictures below to see some of the changes in action.