E-Media Tidbits

"Notably, the Google Maps API and other tools have led to the creation of more dynamic and interactive content, putting new demands on the ways in which geodata is stored, accessed, indexed and rendered. To address these challenges, today we've released the Google Maps Data API in Labs, a Google Data API for viewing, storing and updating geodata on the Web."

"While this might seem like a simple task at first (just look for references to 'San Francisco' or 'New York City'), Placemaker actually uses very sophisticated analytics to disambiguate which of the 39 Springfields in the U.S. a text actually refers to. To do so, Placemaker, will, for example, also look for colloquial names for bridges or references to streets and local sights in a text.

"As many texts obviously contain references to more than one place, Placemaker will often return more than one location per text, though it will try to determine the location. While Placemaker's database covers the globe and will work for texts in 21 different languages (including texts using double-byte character sets in Japanese, Korean and Traditional Chinese), it will -- at least in this first iteration -- work best for texts in English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish."