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"We're working on adding fast interactivity to data-heavy maps. You can see this working on two historical mapping sites we launched with the National Democratic Institute for the 2004 and 2005 elections in Afghanistan. In short, it's now possible to hover over map tiles and see the specific data they contain.
"This kind of interaction - which provides hovering and clicking behaviors to otherwise flat raster map tiles - is now possible without using Flash while still supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer. This is the result of a great deal of work involving raw performance, data interoperability, and compatibility across systems - taking advantage of the OpenLayers mapping library and the Mapnik map rendering toolkit."