Driving directions / yahoo maps:
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Yahoo! Maps
Yahoo! Maps is a free online mapping portal provided by the Yahoo! network,
based out of Sunnyvale, California.
News
* May 16th, 2007, Yahoo! released a new map style designed by a the
cartography company, Cartifact. Data and imagery were also supplied by
Cartifact, including shaded relief showing land surface features and land
cover coloring indicating major environmental zones.
* At some point before May 2007 maps of India were added to http://in.maps.yahoo.com
which is a non Flash interface to Yahoo Maps. In addition to reasonably
detailed Indian coverage (not available through http://maps.yahoo.com) the
site also allows a user to view maps for the rest of the world through it.
Available Services
The main Yahoo! Maps site offers street maps and driving directions for the
United States and Canada. It has the following notable features:
* Address Book: Registered Yahoo! users can store a list of commonly used
street addresses, making it unnecessary to type them in again. A recently
entered address can be quickly recalled by selecting one from a drop-down
list.
* Live Traffic: Traffic incident markers and current highway conditions can
be viewed on the map.
* Point of Interest Finder: SmartView (tm) can be used to find businesses
and other points of interest near the current location, with clickable icons
that supply an address, a telephone number, and links for more information.
* Driving Directions: Driving directions can be displayed on a map or in
printable form, with optional turn-by-turn maps, or as simple text. Links to
driving directions can be e-mailed, and text directions sent to mobile
phones.
Yahoo! Local Maps Rich Internet Application
A new and improved Yahoo! Local Maps has been recently made available. It
offers maps with significantly more interactivity for broadband users. It is
written using Adobe Flex 1.5, leveraging Rich Internet Application
techniques and the Adobe Flash platform (formerly Macromedia Flash). Some
features:
* Draggable maps: The current map view can be manipulated by dragging it
with the mouse or tapping the arrow keys. Zoom level can be controlled via
the mouse scroll wheel, "Page Up"/"Page Down" keys, or the map's zoom bar.
* Multi-point driving directions: Multiple addresses can be entered and
manually reordered for complex driving directions.
* Find On The Map: A local search by business name or category can be typed
into the "Find On The Map" box to locate it in the current map view. A list
of clickable point of interest categories is also available. The results can
be further refined by user rating, or related category.
* Widgets: A number of widgets over the map include a navigator widget, map
type (map, satellite & hybrid) controller and a zoom level control.
* Satellite Imagery: Labelled (hybrid) and unlabelled satellite imagery is
available world-wide.
* Overview map: Collapsible overview map provides context, with draggable
grey area controlling the main map view.
* International Coverage: Outside the US and Canada, Yahoo! Maps Beta can
recognize city, province, and country names, and provide a small-scale map
or satellite views.
* Right click to set waypoint: an origin, destination, or midpoint can be
set by right-clicking on the desired location on the map.
* Draggable markers: Any marker can be dragged to the 'Get Map' text entry
area to add that location to a route.
Live traffic, address book, and send to phone features are also available.
Yahoo! Map Web Services
Developers can embed Yahoo! Maps into their own web pages (to create a
mashup) through the Yahoo! Maps Developer APIs. Many exciting new web sites
have come about recently by displaying content from other sources on top of
maps provided by the various mapping portals (the Google Maps API getting
the most publicity). The Yahoo! Maps APIs come in three basic flavors:
* The Flash APIs, that use the Adobe Flash platform. Three variations,
allowing the developer to write in JavaScript, ActionScript, or Adobe Flex
1.5, are available.
* The Ajax API, for interactive maps that use capabilities inherent in web
browsers, without using the Flash plug-in. Ajax applications are written in
JavaScript.
* The "Simple" API. The Simple API is basically a XML data format, an
extension of GeoRSS, for displaying point of interest data on top of
Yahoo!'s main map site. The Flash and Ajax APIs also support display of
GeoRSS formatted data.
Yahoo! offers a number of low-level APIs to support maps, for geocoding,
getting a map image, searching for a local business, or retrieving traffic
information. Some other Yahoo! services, such as Flickr and Upcoming.org,
have their content available through web services, with interesting
potential for mashups.
Map Data
The street network and other vector data Yahoo! maps uses is from Navteq,
Tele Atlas, and public domain sources. Detailed street network data is
currently available for the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, the Virgin
Islands, and most European countries. Country borders, cities, and water
bodies are mapped for the rest of the world.
Moderate resolution satellite imagery is available world-wide. 1-2 meter
resolution is available for most of the contiguous United States, and select
cities worldwide.
Other Mapping Portals
The following is a partial list of other online mapping portals with similar
or overlapping services.
* MapQuest (ext link)
* Google Maps (ext link)
* Windows Live Local (ext link)
* Map24 (ext link)
* Ask Maps (ext link)
* Multimap.com (ext link)
* Mapstraction a common JavaScript library which makes it easy to switch
between online map providers
Popular culture
* In the SNL Digital Short Lazy Sunday starring Andy Samberg and Chris
Parnell, the two comedians rap about a trip to the movies and discuss
MapQuest and Yahoo! Maps, before concluding "Google Maps is the best."
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