WebProNews

If, for whatever reason, you haven't downloaded Google Earth, you've been missing out on the ultra-nifty Sky application.  Until now, anyway; Google has released a web-based version.

 Google Sky At Work

All would-be users need to do is visit sky.google.com and start clicking around.  A full 26 localized language editions are standing by, and different operating systems and browsers should all be treated equally.

Granted, the web-based Google Sky isn't perfect; its presence on a computer screen hasn't, for example, caused any grown men to cry (as far as we know).  Also, a little patience may be necessary - we noticed that panning actions aren't too smooth, and it's easy to cause "no imagery available" notices to come up.

Still, the thing's getting good reviews.  Stefan Geens writes, "[Its] most convincing feature is its universal accessibility, the permalinkability of specific views and the ease with which you can browse to objects using the gallery strip at the bottom of the screen . . ."

Since it now only takes a two-second copy-paste, instead of a however-long download, to check Google Sky out, we'd suggest you do so.