A quick look at a Google Earth screenshot confirms the mistake – Villa O’Higgins, named after Bernardo O’Higgins, is shown as being located within Argentina’s borders.  But, according to everyone except Google, Villa O’Higgins is actually a Chilean town.  And that kind of makes sense, since Bernardo O’Higgins was a hero in the Chilean War of Independence.

Chile’s Foreign Ministry has, according to USA Today, asked Google if it could please have its village back.  The search engine company claims to be looking into the matter.

“We have received the request and are working with our partners to get more precise data for the region,” stated Google spokeswoman Megan Quinn.  “We’re constantly working to improve the quality and accuracy of our maps.  This is an ongoing process as we receive new information from third party data providers.”

So it looks as if Argentina may get to hold onto Villa O’Higgins for a while yet.  One interesting issue in all of this is the fact that Google recently opened its regional headquarters in Argentina.  Google also, as it so happens, appears to have selected Argentina over Chile.  But to be honest, this matter is, while interesting, probably entirely unrelated.

Baeza-Yates heads the research labs in Chile and Spain for Yahoo, bringing along a rsum that places him among the world leaders in data mining and information retrieval.

His discussion posted at Yahoo touched on the formation of Yahoo’s new labs in Santiago and Barcelona, where Baeza-Yates has connections to the academic communities. Before joining Yahoo, he had founded and headed Chile’s Center for Web Research for about five years.

Here are some snippets from his question and answer session that may be of interest to our readers. The more gastronomic among you should visit the site to see his takes on wine and what Chilean dish should make it to Yahoo’s URLs cafeteria in Sunnyvale:

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Earthquakes have no regard for age or status as the one-minute catastrophe knocked over adobe and more prominent house alike, and causing landslides to smother the life from those as young 9 months.

Iquique, about 1000 miles from Santiago, is a mining district in northern Chile where water mains burst and power was lost. Nearby port cities Arica and Antofagasta suffered similar fates from the quake that was felt as far away as Bolivia, and southern Peru. Damage is described as minor in the neighboring countries.

Residents of Iquique, which is home to 140,000 people, are left without food, water, or power as they await emergency aid from Chile’s Emergency Bureau ONEMI.

Mercedez Cruz, from nearby Huavilla, recounted her story to local radio:

“The church fell down, 15 houses are destroyed and 20 are uninhabitable.
We’ve been out in the town square all night because it quaked all night.

ONEMI said most of the 11 deaths so far were landslide related.

The quake struck at 6:44 PM, Chilean time on Monday, and shook for close to a minute at 7.9 on the Richter scale of magnitude.

President Ricardo Lagos returned home from Europe early than expected to tour the quake-wracked area and to assess the damages.

The government has already sent food and medicine to the scene to help the stricken. 200 people have been reported injured in quake related incidents.

Interior Minister Jorge Correa said that power and communications were interrupted in many areas, especially in remote mountain villages.

Officially, the epicenter was located at 19.9 degrees south latitude and 69.2 degrees west longitude, about 110 kilometers northeast of Tarapaca’s capital, Iquique, and lasted 50 seconds.

The earthquake was 70 miles east-northeast of Iquique in the northern mining region of Chile when it hit at 6:44pm local time this evening. The force of the quake was felt in the capital of Bolivia and in southern Peru as well as the other Chilean cities of Arica and Antofagasta.

Chile’s naval oceanographers were quick to say there would be no tsunamis from this earthquake. Tsumanis are cataclysmic tidal waves most recently associate with the destruction caused in Southern Asia after an extraordinarily powerful quake on the floor of the Indian Ocean in December of last year.

ONEMI, Chile’s emergency services agency said that firefighters, police and other public safety officials have descended on the region to determine the severity of the situation.

Iqnique, a densely populate mining city received the bulk of the shaking. There’s also no word yet on how this will affect, if at all, the mining operations in that region.

John Stith is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

The news sites all have a similar appearance, but they are in seven different languages. They also are focused on the geographic region they serve.

It is a logical move on the part of Google and I expect literally a hundred or more geo-focused versions of Google News to launch over the next few years. This would include new english language versions, but serving countries such as the U.K. and Australia.

Here are the new versions just launched:

- Argentina
- Chile
- Canada Franais
- Mxico
- sterreich
- Schweiz
- Suisse

It’s obvious that Google sees much of their future revenue growth coming from expanding their existing search services to the rest of the world.

One interesting note, Michael Krantz of the Google Blog Team who announced the expansions used the phrase, “franchise operations”. Does this mean they are partnerships with others? Probably not, but I’m interested in finding this out.

Rich Ord is the CEO of iEntry, Inc. which publishes over 200 websites and email newsletters.

Rich also publishes his blog WebProBlog which focuses on internet business and marketing trends.