A really cool thing (for lack of better words) I ran across is something called MappedUp.

MappedUp is an application that tracks a large number of RSS news sources and displays their latest items on a world map.

You can download MappedUp as a screensaver or active desktop. You can also download MappedUp for your blog or website.

If you take a look at their website, you can see what I mean. The tools is customizable by keywords so you can see the items with only the stuff you are interested in. The only catch is you have to use the feeds available through MappedUp so it can properly display them on the map. Despite this limitation, it is still a cool looking project which will probably continue to grow.