This Article is From May 13, 2009

Google's 'Internet Bus' to tour Karnataka

Bangalore:

With a novel attempt to create awareness on the benefits of Internet, Google India has announced to run an 'Internet bus' across Karnataka.

Starting from Bangalore, the Internet bus would travel through 15 towns in Karnataka in the next 50 days to enable people with limited knowledge and exposure to the Internet "to know the advantages of using the medium."

The bus experiment had created positive results in neighbouring Tamil Nadu and the Karnataka leg would continue to focus on four themes - information, communication, entertainment and education, Prasad Ram, Head of Google, R and D said.

The video-driven content would showcase how people with basic knowledge of Internet, 'could make their everyday lives simpler.' It would also familiarise with using services like search, e-mail, social networking, online maps and mobile. All this information would be available in English and Kannada.

"Tamil Nadu was a big learning for us and it was inspiring to see that people wanted to know about the Internet and share their needs with us. In this phase we will also be focusing on how mobile phones can be used to access local information even without data plans," he said.

Access to Internet in local languages would continue to be a focus area, he said.

.