Slashgeo

The Google Earth Blog discuss and provide links related to Wikipedia for Google Earth and WikiSearch tool. From the blog: "Apparently someone named Stefan Kuhn processed a database with about 34,000 wikipedia story locations and ranked them according to description file size. KASSPER then created a network link allowing you to view the locations as placemarks in Google Earth. [...] In the same GEC thread, KASSPER also posted a nifty web page tool for searching the Wikipedia database for locations." This topic is very dear to me. Numerous efforts are made towards Geo-enabled Wikis. Here's some links (including traditionnal wikis and geo-enabled wikis): giswiki.de traditionnal wiki and EOGeo FreeGISBook, Tikiwiki+Mapserver , WikiTravel, WorldKit GeoWiki. Keep in mind the OSGeo also has plans regarding this issue as previously discussed on their mailing list.

Here's a wrap-up of last month's geonews regarding OpenStreetMap. First is a long discussion on the licence attributed to data contributed to the OpenStreetMap project, an exert: "Many of the problems arise because Creative Commons (the “CC” of our licence), as the name suggests, is largely concerned with “creative works” - music, literature, art, and so on. OpenStreetMap, on the other hand, produces data: a factual, uncontroversial recording of the world around us. [...] In the [Science Commons initiative] protocol, Creative Commons restates the problem that copyright simply does not apply universally to factual information." Then there's an update on Nestoria, the first commercial application now using exclusively OSM data. We also have Google's Ed Parsons discussing the differences between data in Google Maps and OpenStreetMap. Other OSM entries include a short discussion on the community surrounding OSM vs "old timers", a mention of OSM during the KDE 4 keynote, a visual comparison of Google data vs OSM + OpenAerialMap data over China, a short account of using JOSM, the advanced OpenStreetMap editor, and finally, the announcement of this year's State of the Map 2008 conference will be held in Ireland. See also the numerous related stories below (more if you search the Slashgeo archives). On a personal note, I used to say about OSM that data is particularly useful in Europe, but not in North America yet... after a quick peak today at the status of OSM completion in NA, I admit I'm impressed, data has been added very rapidly and this is obviously great news for public domain data.

Nick Black writes "The call for papers The 2nd OpenStreetMap Conference, The StateoftheMap 2008 is now open. We’re inviting papers and demonstrations from anyone who contributes to OpenStreetMap or uses OpenStreetMap or other open geodata. Would you like to demonstrate uses of OSM data or run a Tricks and Tips session? Maybe you’ve got the best routing engine around and your itching to show it off? Is tagging driving you crazy? There are a few different ways you can participate in the State of the Map 2008 — giving a talk, holding a workshop or giving a lightning talk.

For more information, check out the SOTM site or email registration@stateofthemap.org." Related stories copied below.

Nick writes "CloudMade announced details of their OpenStreetMap Grants scheme yesterday. The idea is simple — anyone can apply for grants of £100 — £1000+ to support useful, interesting or innovative work around OpenStreetMap. This could be anything from squashing OSM’s 10 most annoying bugs to mapping an entire city to building an OSM community from scratch to writing a new mapping client. The grants scheme is open to anyone regardless of location — all ideas are considered and the chosen entries will be announced on CloudMade's blog." Recent OSM related stories copied below, but a lot more with a search.

The Mapping News Blog reports about OpenStreetMap new ability. It already supports a couple of different formats, including PNG, JPEG, PDF, SVG and Postscript. For more info and the screenshots, please visit the Mapping News Blog. Update: 04/22 14:47 GMT by S : Here's the official announcement on the new export capabilities. In addition to lxnyce's story, I recently found out (via Kurt) about eWorld, an open source framework to import mapping data, including OSM data. From the eWorld page: "eWorld is a framework to import mapping data from providers, such as OpenStreetMap.org (OSM), visualize it, edit and enrich it with events or annotational attributes and pass it to traffic simulators, such as SUMO or VanetMobiSim."