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OpenStreetMap: 'It's the Wikipedia of maps'

When Steve Coast created OpenStreetMap in 2004, he had to build the world from scratch. "We started with absolutely nothing, a completely blank canvas. The first data came from me cycling around Regent's Park with a GPS puck the size of a pack of cards and then plugging it into my laptop." His eventual aim? To map the entire planet and make the data freely available, without copyright restrictions, for everyone with an internet connection to use in a multitude of ways. Now, eight years on from Regent's Park, most of the world has been mapped, in varying degrees of detail, and can be viewed on openstreetmap.org and on numerous other services that use the site's data. Read More