Designers at data visualization house Stamen have created a very cool compromise for digital maps. It’s a watercolor-like skin for any OpenStreetMap project, and it’s totally remarkable. Streets have an organic, analog roundness to their edges, and bodies of water aren’t a solid blue, but a mix of hues and color densities, as if the map is actual, textured paper slathered with a casual mix of water and paint. (In fact, the digital render is pretty much indistinguishable from any actual scanned map.)
It's iicensed under Creative Commons.
The NextWeb delves into Apple, Google and OSM. One big quesiton: Does Bing use OSM. In the end we learn: no, it does not. Oh, and there's some conspiracy theory in there, too.
The OpenStreetMap Foundation Japan (OSMFJ) and TheOpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) announce the release of a new OpenStreetMap layer for Yahoo!JAPAN map services. The new OSM layer is available on Yahoo! JAPAN Local.
This follows the March 6 donation of data by Yahoo!Japan. And, there's a mobile layer, too, for Japan.
