Locate Press published an updated edition of "Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source Tools" written by the creator of Quantum GIS.

The OpenStreetMap Project has announced that it has surpassed more than 300,000 registered contributors and that it is now accepting venue suggestions for next year's State of the Map conference

I was lately impressed by Marble Desktop Globe, a free, open-source application for KDE4 which includes a 3D atlas of the world, with lots of features and an interface similar to the one of Google Earth.

Simon Schmeisser has managed to integrate Marble (a geographical map widget) as a Flake Shape into KPresenter. As a flake shape you can change the map according to your liking even after it has been embedded into the KOffice application.

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a collaborative project in the process of building a free, Web-accessible, user-editable map of the world. So far, most of its map data has come through user-contributed GPS traces, but OSM has recently undertaken the bulk import of government-collected data covering the entire United States.

Traditional weather reports will give notice of vague forecasts and severe weather alerts in your general area. The code and tools presented in this article will allow you to create precise detection zones so you can receive a page, SMS, or e-mail a few minutes before a precipitation event is likely to occur at the monitored location.