Can you get real-time imagery in Google Earth?

Imagery and photos including Street view photos in google Earth (or google Maps) may appear real-time (or live) but it is NOT and often takes months of post processing before new imagery becomes available on google Earth/Maps.

This is one reason why you usually do not find any imagery younger than about 6 months in google Earth/Maps. Updates usually happen about every 2-3 weeks and only to particular areas not the entire globe all at once.

While the imagery is not real-time, google is making some layers such as traffic and the cloud weather layer available near real-time and refreshed every few hours.

There is also a new webcam layer integrated into google Earth that can show "live" scenes at selected locations.

Also, there are third party data feeds such as real-time flight tracking available.