A printed world atlas is more than a bound collection of relief maps; among the additional materials usually found in a world atlas is a section that the Oxford series calls a “Gazeteer of Nations” and the National Geographic atlas calls “Nations”, containing a short entry on each country and territory in the world. The MapQuest Atlas heads in that direction, but it’s basic: clicking on a country gets you the name, flag, capital and the time and temperature (for the capital, problematic and confusing with larger countries that span many time zones). Clicking again gets you a short entry from the CIA World Factbook. It’s effective only at a couple of zoom levels, and the interface doesn’t adjust: too far out and you can’t see what you’re clicking on, too close and you can click anywhere and get the same country (there are no state/provincial or city pages, or continental pages, and so forth). A lot more could be done with this idea. Via @MapQuest.