Google Earth - helping you waste time at work in its fifth release

Super Bowled out? Done with the weepy ending to the Australian Open? Can figure out how to best waste company time AND bandwidth today in the sports doldrums?

My friends, I bring you Google Earth, 5.0 Beta, available for download today.

Sure, you’ve already spent hours tracking all the place you’d go if money were no object. You’ve inspected the Great Wall of China. The Parthenon. The Kremlin You’ve probably even used it for useful stuff, like mapping your way to the Dells or stalking that hot girl from junior high that you always knew would have gone out with you if only you’d asked. So what’s so special about this release?

Well, you can go under the ocean for one. They’ve added a detailed mapping of the oceans that lets you dive in and check out the watery parts of the world – sorry, Atlantis not added yet. They do some cool stuff here with National Geographic video and mapping and also use Jaques Cousteau explorations via video. If you like the fishies, this is sweet.

You also get to toggle between current and historical images – you can see, for instance, what Soldier Field looked like BEFORE the space ship landed on it. For those of you expecting to watch the dinosaurs or the Civil War, remember, this is satellite imagery, so there is a shortish date range that applies.

And, because we all need more ways to spread ourselves across the Web, you can now map out your own trips in a recordable travelog format. So now it’s much easier for people you have no concept of ever knowing to follow your every step in this great world.

It really is pretty sweet, the lack of dinosaurs notwithstanding. Download – for Windows, Mac and Linux – and drag your productivity down for a while, won’t you?