APIs can form the basis of business model, as in the case of Stripe, a payments API, or they can be a revenue stream (for example, the Google Maps API).
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For instance, Google will ban developers from distributing their client software outside of the Google Mirror API Client distribution channel for Glass.
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Join us for an early look at Glass and two full days of hacking on the upcoming Google Mirror API in San Francisco or New York.
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After the user is prompted for his or her address, the Google Maps API fetches and incorporates dynamic maps and street view data of the user's hometown into the animated content of the video itself.
Also, Google created an API, allowing users to implement maps within their own applications.
Google is making another attempt at becoming a player in the location space with the launch of a free, open API for Google Latitude, the company announced today.
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This pilot uses Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM) which is part of the Android API to link the Google App Engine server and Android client.
Announced via the company's developer-focused Hacks blog, navigator.mozPay() is a Javascript API crafted in the vein of Google Wallet, but with a key difference: it'll allow direct carrier billing and support for various payment providers.
Now some of that language-processing power is available to everyone in the form of an API that developers can use to have Google distinguish between different categories of text.
At this point it is not crazy to imagine that Google would start doing entity extraction and provide an API so that all sorts of applications could be enhanced to achieve Unified Information Access.
"This is just where we started with a few friends to test the API in its early stage, " says Google Glass developer evangelist Timothy Jordan.
For the big players (Google, Salesforce, Twitter), you simply launch an API and everyone starts playing with it.
There's even a publisher API for extending the subscription beyond the walls of Google Play and your Android device.
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