The ‘okada’ mode in Google maps, which refers to the new tab for motorcycle travels, and even the provision for navigating and finding directions for commercial buses known as ‘Danfo’ may have taken the shine following announcements at the Google for Nigeria event last week, but there were other equally important updates and announcements.
Noteworthy is Bolo, an app that helps children learn how to read. It is a speech-based reading app that helps kids learn how to read in English. It encourages them to read out loud and then provides individual, customised feedback to help improve their reading capabilities.
Bolo was launched in India earlier this year and is now available in Nigeria and Ghana. It is available for download from the Google Play store, and so far, is completely free. Navigating through the app, there are seven books pre-loaded with the app, and at the time of writing this article, as many as 68 others are available for download to the app’s library.
Other new updates include Gallery Go, Google Lens, and a Nigerian culinary experience from Google Arts and Culture. Google also says it has partnered with the Nigerian Government to make an online safety curriculum available to all primary and secondary school students in the country, reaching an estimated 56 million Nigerian students every year.
To help make it easier to visually explore places in Nigeria, Google is publishing more panoramic imagery on Street View. Starting with imagery of Lagos two years ago, Google has added Street View imagery of Abuja, Benin City, Enugu and Ibadan – with almost 12 thousand kilometers of roads added.
Gallery Go has also been launched, a fast and smart photo gallery designed for users who do not have a reliable internet connection. Gallery Go brings many of the best features of Google Photos on device, to help them find, edit and manage their photos even when they are offline. The app is only 10MB to keep the phone light and fast.
Google Go was launched last year, making it easier for people to discover the best of the internet even on low-RAM smartphones or unstable network connections. Google has now announced updates to make Google Go even more useful. The Discover feed has been integrated within Google Go to help people stay in the know with their interests. It provides an ongoing look at the things they care about, like the latest content on their football team, people of interest, music and news stories.
From this week, users will also be able to access the Assistant directly from Google Go in a new Nigerian voice. Using only their voice, they will be able to ask Google to perform tasks, from making calls to surfing the internet for specific queries.
Google has also launched Lens inside Google Go, to help people read, translate, and search the words they see simply by using their camera. Users can open Lens, point it at a sign, and listen to the words read out loud. If they don’t speak the language, they can translate it into their own. Google has now launched support for Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo.
Google Arts & Culture also unveiled a new project, ‘Come Chop Bellefull: A Taste of Nigeria’, which pays tribute to Nigeria’s vibrant and diverse food culture. People across the world can now explore Nigerian regional cooking and culture through 2,000 high-resolution images and 30 stories created in collaboration with The Centenary Project at the Pan-Atlantic University.
