OpenStreetMap – Let’s map the whole planet, one person at a time
Another crazy-brilliant site, OpenStreetMap.org, is aiming to get all of us to annotate maps of all places on the planet. In other words, I know my neighborhood, let me log in and indicate what streets are called what, which ones are one way, where the intersections are etc. This may not sound so special if you live in Boston, or any other relatively built up part of the world.
But for out of the way places where, one might presume, the bigco's have not yet come through to annotate the sattelite photos, it sets up a rather cool, people powered way of capturing this information.
From their own wiki:
"OpenStreetMap creates and provides free geographic data such as street
maps to anyone who wants them. The project was started because most
maps you think of as free actually have legal or technical restrictions
on their use, holding back people from using them in creative,
productive, or unexpected ways."
And very likely the results will be more up to date, more detailed and more accurate.