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Google Maps has been cranking out the updates fast and furious lately. In the last week the site has incorporated photos and Wikipedia entries, added the ability to pan upward in street views and this morning it announced a new Flash mapping API.

The biggest news in the bunch is the Flash API, which means you can now feed live Google Maps into your Flash app. Couple that with some of the powerful new features in Adobe’s just-announced Flash Player 10 beta, and there’s suddenly a world of new possibilities for Flash developers.

Probably the real winner here though is Adobe AIR, Adobe’s desktop/web hybrid platform. Although AIR apps can be built using JavaScript, if the current crop of AIR apps is any indicator, Flash is the far more popular choice. The new Google Maps Flash API will allow AIR developers working exclusively in Flash to tap into Google Maps for mashups and other applications.

Of course Yahoo has offered a Flash API for its mapping service for many years, so Google’s announcement is hardly ground breaking.

Also new in Google Maps are placemarks for photos and Wikipedia entries. To access the new features just hover your mouse over the “More…” menu and select the options you want to see. As with similar features in Google Earth, the photos come from Panoramio and the Wikipedia entries offer a brief summary and link to the main page.

The last feature is a small change that now allows you to pan upward in the street view and to check out surrounding buildings. My photo-savvy friends tell me it isn’t exactly the sort of true panorama you’d find in a Quicktime VR, but it is nice for finding landmarks in cities like New York.

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