The MapQuest service has been expanded from US to worldwide coverage, with free zoom-in maps of over three million locations. US maps are tied in with a database of business locations, so you can highlight all the Italian restaurants in a map area. . [Liz Tompkins , inet-news, 8/4/96. net-hap.] (MapQuest gets more than 2M hits per day, serving up more than 700 maps per minute. It's among the top 200 sites worldwide for daily traffic. They've now tied it in with TripQuest, for planning travel routes.)

MapBlast! will display any US street address, for inclusion in your web page or emailing to others. . [Peter Monaco , 5/31/96. Lily Laws.]

BigBook is adding street maps and VRML 3D simulations of San Francisco to its yellow pages listings. Other cities by year-end. [Newsweek, 8/12/96, p. 13.]

Free geographic information system (GIS) software, demos, data, and reports can be found at . [, net-hap, 7/31/96.]

Another good GIS site is GISLinx, . [, net-hap, 8/7/96.]