Google Earth Live and Voyager will now let you tell stories with live feeds

Google Earth’s latest update brings support for live video feeds to the platform. Not only will users be able to explore the world in 3D, they will now be able to dive in and stream a video live from supported locations. Google has integrated into Google Earth’s storytelling feature, Voyager. The first such story comes to Voyager courtesy of Explore.org, which takes us on a 5-slide-long journey into Katmai National Park to watch bears living out their lives.

It’s a fun take on live streams and there is potential for Voyager, but we’d love to see better live feed integration than the current implementation. Right now, you can simply click on this link and head to the Explore.org story. It takes you to Google Earth and shows you five informative slides. Each slide is linked to a location on Google Maps and a YouTube live stream. Sadly, the cameras are not 360-degree cameras, which would have been much better for the sake of immersion. The cameras are placed at various locations in the park and if you’re lucky, you might spot a bear or two. There’s even an underwater camera! While we still think it’s a bit limited right now, we’d love to see how film/documentary makers take advantage of the medium.