Earth Explorer DEM

This educational program brings a plethora of geographic information right to your desktop. After launching Earth Explorer DEM, you're greeted by a 3D view of the Earth. To the right of the globe sits a table of information on countries, cities, and islands. Clicking an entry spins the globe to the appropriate location. Mousing over the location displays political data such as population, size, and capital. You can zoom in or out, calculate distances, and change the globe's rotation. Earth Explorer also can display features such as rivers, major cities, and recent earthquakes. The demo version restricts you to a far-off view of the surface, but the registered version provides resolution down to 1km per pixel. Even at low resolutions, we experienced noticeable delays on a Pentium III-class machine. Those quibbles aside, both students and geography-curious folks will find this application a fun and interactive way to learn about the world.