It seems Geoblogger’s Rev Dan Catt just couldn’t resist the temptation, so now we have Google Maps tiles in Google Earth, courtesy of some extremely cool hacking. Definitely worth checking out. (Don’t forget to play with altitudes. Unfortunately, this one just proves too much for VirtualPC for me to obtain a screenshot of San Francisco with my Mac.)

[Update 10:02 UTC: Wow. It seems like the good Rev may have been beaten to it by Germany’s Bernhard Sterzbach (not that it’s a competition or anything:-). Here is his Google Maps overlay. I’m in no position to judge their relative merits. BTW, as if any more justification for this hack is needed, Bernhard points out: “When I was entering placemarks for my recent holiday in Japan I noticed that Google Earth resolution (outside Tokyo) is fairly limited but Google Maps shows all of Japan with excellent detail.” (Brought to my attention via LammiaGazza, who has screenshots.)]