Google maps Russian assault on Savannah
Georgia on its mind. Just not the right one
Posted in Bootnotes, 11th August 2008 10:44 GMT
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Google may have plans to catalogue all the world's information, but it's found itself a bit confused between the former Soviet republic of Georgia and the southern US state.
An AFP report that Russian tanks were rushing into the south was accompanied on Google News by a map of the Savannah region, raising possible concern about a General Sherman-style march to the sea.
The search engine giant is guilty of the same type of eff-up as fictional character Adrian Mole. On hearing of the Argentine invasion of the Falklands, Mole briefly worried that the South Americans had landed somewhere off the coast of Scotland.
Google has excised the unfortunate picture juxtaposition from Google News, but not before Valleywag captured screenshots. Unfortunately at the time of writing, a search for "russians invade georgia" on Google Maps still turns up a map of the area around Atlanta rather than Tbilisi. Oopsie.
At least, unlike Tibet, the Caucasian republic of Georgia can still be located on Google Maps. ®
Bootnote
It appears Google is not the only one feeling a bit geographically befuddled. The venerable Sky News is proudly displaying a handy guide to Georgia on a smart 'In-Depth' page (presently here), explaining that it is "also known as the Peach State and the Empire State of the South". The context-busting paragraph is credited thus:
Information generated by Wikipedia. Sky News takes no responsibility for its accuracy.
Well, it's not that it's inaccurate, per se... but hey, no biggie.
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