Some of you may be interested in the latest OS initiative following the Governments desire to be more open with certain so called Public Information.

Full details can be found here: http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/opendata/ 

Coupled with the successful OpenSpace this really does provide a reasonable mapping data source. I already use the OpenSpace API and recently attended an Open Evening down at Southampton where not only did I meet the OpenSpace Team but saw what some of the other developers are doing.

The Opendata is being reviewed in May and many more formats are likely to be available. One being the current Land-Form PANORAMA (contour data set) which is only available as a dxf file at present.

I'm playing around with some ideas which may be of use here on AditNow if acceptable. The limitation is really down to programming skills. Apart from having map layers I've been using the map to deliver data from my weather station using php. This can also be done using Ajax and xml too so I'm informed. You can see the weather map here:http://www.kap.toadstone.com/wx/php/osmap.php 

When using small amounts of data it is quite simple to use text files for the information such as found here: http://www.kap.toadstone.com/kapmap/osmap.html 
But you can also use MySQL databases too, which I'm having a go at now. This has the capability of allowing users to enter information too, so there may be a use there and of course by adding the post code/gazetteer code to the map it becomes even more powerful.

Peter.