IT and cartography: OpenStreetMap goes online

Microsoft has added OpenStreetMap, an open source mapping project that keeps user editable map of the entire globe, to Bing Maps. This step will help to receive geographical data about those regions, which were not reached by Microsoft Maps developers.

Maps in OpenStreetMap are edited by users themselves (nicknamed “Wikipedia of maps”). Thus, unlike traditional maps of Microsoft Bing Maps or Google Maps, unregistered areas will be covered in OpenStreetMap due to data submitted by their inhabitants.

A community of map lovers and developers can gather location data worldwide from a variety of sources such as recordings from GPS devices, from free satellite imagery or simply from knowing an area very well, for example because they live there. This information will then get uploaded to OpenStreetMap's central database from where it can be further modified, corrected and enriched by anyone who notices missing facts or errors about the area.

Maps of OpenStreetMap are freely accessible. Thus supporting OpenStreetMap, Microsoft is in fact making a step towards Open Source technologies.