Slashgeo

The GeoChalkboard blog alerts us of the new api release. From the official announcement page, here is a summary of what's new : "Welcome to the release of version 3 of the Google Maps API. This JavaScript API will look similar to the existing version 2 of the Google Maps API. However, much has changed under the hood: Version 3 (called V3 within this document) has been designed to load fast, especially on mobile browsers such as Android-based devices and the iPhone™. The initial launch has a smaller feature set than that available in the V2 API. We will migrate additional features from V2 while working to keep the size of the JavaScript code small and maintain our optimized loading speeds."

The following submission is about MapFish Studio, which was mentioned in last March. What's new is the video (see link below) that demonstrates how easy it is now to build and serve a webmap from scratch using open source geospatial software and a GUI. MapFish Studio is multi-OS. Cedric Moullet writes "Studio, based on MapFish technology, is the new WYSIWYG editor for the creation of web mapping applications. More information here. You can also test it live and really publish your application here (be warned: this is a test Amazon instance, not a production service)." See also related stories below. Somewhat related, GeoExt.org just revamped its website.

James Fee's Blog takes note of the newest release by the Openlayers team. The major enhancements are :

• Support for multi-layer vector feature selection
• Support for drawing text on vector layers
• Several new controls
• 5 new layer types, including OSM, ArcXML, and more.
• The long-awaited WFS protocol support, and related improvements

Visit the blog for the full details.