Institute for Analytic Journalism :: Publish/Produce/Package

Serious Games Initiative
http://www.seriousgames.org/

The Serious Games Initiative is focused on uses for games in exploring management and leadership challenges facing the public sector. Part of its overall charter is to help forge productive links between the electronic game industry and projects involving the use of games in education, training, health, and public policy.

Says information specialists Marylaine Block:
"As one who believes nobody should be allowed to run for office until they have played
Sim City for at least six months, I think such games have enormous
potential for helping people explore complex social problems and possible
solutions."

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Friday, November 4

More churning in the mapping API world

by JTJ on Fri 04 Nov 2005 02:23 PM MST

Interesting announcement from Yahoo Maps this week. Seems as though Google, Yahoo and Amazon (with it's A9 entry) are starting to look like three NASCAR competitors on the backstretch of the lap before the finish line. Here's the latest from Yahoo:
==========================

November 02, 2005

Announcing New Maps APIs

In June of this year, we gave developers the ability to overlay geographic data on a Yahoo! Map. Since then, we've seen a lot of terrific maps mash-ups. But you wanted more. You wanted the ability to embed Yahoo! Maps on your own Web site. You wanted to programmatically convert addresses into geocoded longitude/latitude pairs. You wanted more data feeds, such as highway traffic and local data, to plot on a map. But most importantly, you wanted a user experience that's better than any online mapping product out there.

Today we build on the success of the Simple Maps API by adding several new APIs for Yahoo! Maps. These products enable developers to use Yahoo! Maps in exciting new ways — including embedding maps on your Web site.

With this release, we are providing:

APIs for both Flash and AJAX to give you a choice of presentation models
Specific support for ActionScript and Macromedia Flex for Yahoo! Maps developers targeting Flash
New "building block" APIs, including geocoding, traffic information, map images, and local search.

Of course, the Simple Maps API we released in June is still there, giving developers and non-developers the ability to plot locations on Yahoo! Maps with no programming and no rate limits.

We're giddy with excitement about this release, and we can't wait to see how you use the new APIs. We know there's lot to digest here, so if you have questions, feedback, or just want to show off what you've done, please join us in the yws-maps group.

Jeffrey McManus
Director, Yahoo! Developer Network

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