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Abuja, Ibadan, two others get Google Street View navigation

Technology firm, Google, has extended its Street View navigation system to four more cities in Nigeria, after Lagos. The newly mapped cities are Abuja, Benin City, Enugu, and Ibadan.

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Technology firm, Google, has extended its Street View navigation system to four more cities in Nigeria, after Lagos.

The newly mapped cities are Abuja, Benin City, Enugu, and Ibadan. The Street View navigation system enables people to see ground-level images of streets, real estate, businesses and tourist attractions from the comfort of their homes, offices or hotel room.

The Guardian gathered that the Street View navigation in the new cities covers 12,000km, which is equivalent to the city of San Francisco in the USA.

The search giant disclosed this in Lagos, yesterday, at the Google for Nigeria forum, the third edition in the country.

Google has also upgraded the maps. Instead of the regular foreign voice, it has launched the Nigerian voice in Google Maps driving directions to aid clarity and direction.

Director, Product Management, Google, Ramesh Nagarajan, said about 15 million buildings have been added to the map, while over 200, 000 new businesses are now on the platform in Nigeria.

Nagarajan said the map is accessed more than 100 million times in Nigeria.

The firm also informed of the introduction of a new User Interface on Google Maps that focuses on informal transit (danfo) directions, traffic, the busyness of transit system, weather and others.

Google announced the first-time launch of a two-wheeler (Motorbike) directions mode in Google Maps in the country.

The technology company will offer a $3 million grant to support African non-profits focused on providing corporate social support in education for children in underserved communities, girls and economic empowerment of young people.

The American tech firm also announced the launch of Bolo, a new speech-based reading tutor app for primary grade children. It is an app built to help children learn to read.

Google Country Manager, Nigeria, Julie Ehimuan-Chiazor, said the whole effort is targeted towards making Google work better for Nigerians.

Ehimuan-Chiazor said Google, which started operations in 1998 in the USA, has become an enabler for global developments. She stressed that the platform not only helps to get answers but also to find something meaningful to do.

According to her, because of the strategic importance of the Nigerian market to Google, out of the eight million Africans expected to be empowered with digital training, four million are coming from Nigeria.

The Google boss noted that as Nigeria moves to harness the huge benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it requires that the country embrace the latest forms of technology to create global impact, “which is what Google is pushing in Nigeria.”

Director, Trust and Safety Terms, Google, Paul Nicholas, the Internet is a great equalizer, bringing people together, “but there is a need for checks and balances.”

“As such, we are working with the Nigerian government on online safety curriculum. This curriculum will be made available to primary and secondary schools, where we hoped that about 56 million pupils and students would have access to it and be impacted positively,” Nicholas stated.

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