News: Google Maps leads to accident

A woman in the US is suing Google after being hit by a car while walking on a busy highway. She was instructed to walk there by Google Maps.

According to searchengineland.com, Lauren Rosenberg was following the walking directions via her BlackBerry smartphone. She was struck by a vehicle after being instructed to walk approximately 800 m on what turned out to be a busy highway, which didn’t have a pathway for pedestrians.

The lawsuit, Rosenberg v. Harwood (Patrick Harwood is the man who was driving the car), was filed in the US District Court of Utah’s Central Division. Rosenberg is suing both Harwood and Google for over $100 000 (about R780 000) for “severe physical, emotional, and mental injuries, including pain and suffering, and causing her to incur medical expenses”.

In related news, according to the Financial Times, Google is in the process of phasing out Microsoft’s Windows operating system (OS) from its company computers, because of security concerns in the aftermath of the hacking attacks that originated in China.

“Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks,” stated one employee. Google’s newly hired staff apparently get to choose between a PC running a variant of the open-source Linux OS or a Mac-based computer.

Google Maps leads to accident

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