Ever wished you knew more about a historical building you walked by? Now you can, by taking out your mobile phone and using a new service named Wikinear. Using the recently launched Yahoo service Fire Eagle, a set of APIs that determine your geographic location, Wikinear figures out where you are, and displays the five nearest points of interest from Wikipedia on a Google map.
You will need a Fire Eagle account to use the service, which, as the service is still in private beta stage, unfortunately means a very limited number of people will be able to use Wikinear. As more people join with Fire Eagle, it will help increase the usability of Wikinear by adding more location information, so by the time the site goes public, there should be a ton of data for you to enjoy.