Tools like Google-maps are being use in many ways – i.e. in disasters as Katrina. Wired’s got an article about people using Scipionus.com to place teardropped shaped markers on a map of New Orleans – and each marker has some information about the adress, street or block that the teardrop points to.

It’s the work of two young men, Jonathan Mendez and Greg Toll. Mendez got the idea and asked his friend Toll that had made several Google Maps API’s if he could make the markers writable. According to Toll it took him one and a half hour.

Another perfect example of the power of ordinary people – helping each other providing information – not the authorities. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has – according to i.e. Wired – not been able to providing the same understandable information.

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