People who are planning trips abroad may be able to move "I’m lost" a few places down the list of foreign phrases they’ll want to learn. Google’s taken a major step towards making that scenario less likely by introducing driving directions in 111 new countries.
The list of countries is, as you might expect, rather long:
Algeria, American Samoa, Angola, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Aruba, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Faroe Islands, Fiji, French Guiana, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Iceland, Iran, Jamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Montserrat, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands Antilles, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Qatar, Reunion, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna, Western Sahara, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
We’re sure many people will appreciate Google’s efforts, too. One slight problem might be a lack of Internet access in many of these nations (hence the U.S.-centric introduction to this article), but that’s not Google’s fault, and with this move, the company’s increasing the odds that its brand will be one of the first things new Internet users encounter online.
Anyway, considering that these 111 countries represent more than half of the countries in the world, there may not be a whole lot left for Google to do in terms of advancing global driving directions at this point. For accuracy’s sake, the search giant’s just invited Google Map Maker users to add anything they think is absent or adjust anything that’s not spot on.
WebProNews is an iEntry Publication