CAIRO: Google Inc., the company that runs and owns the world's largest search engine, announced yesterday the launch of Google News in Arabic. Google News in Arabic will enable users to view the latest news headlines and related photos, as well as search and browse 500 Arabic news sources in the Middle East. According to the Egyptian country manager for Google Inc., Sherif Iskander, Google News will allow users to view headlines and photos grouped into different categories, such as world and business news. Users can click on a headline to link directly to the news publisher s page where the complete story appears. By collecting news articles from multiple sources in one place, Google News will make the news more accessible and more interesting, thus encouraging people to read more, and benefiting the news industry as a whole, he stated at a press conference held yesterday in Cairo to earmark the launch of the product in addition to the first visit of the Google Inc. director of emerging markets, EMEA, to Egypt. At Google we tailor our products to meet the needs of users in different parts of the world, said Dennis Woodside, Director Emerging Markets, EMEA. People in the Middle East and other Arabic speakers globally will now be able to search and browse news in their native tongue. The launch of Google News in Arabic demonstrates Google s commitment to bring localized products to users across the globe, he added. According to Woodside, there are 23 million people online in the Middle East. This is expected to reach 53 million by 2008. Furthermore, the average Internet user in major Middle Eastern markets spends around 10 hours a week online. Launching Google News will give these users a new way to access Arabic news from a variety of different sources and perspectives, stated Woodside. Google News uses an automated process to pull together related headlines, which allows people to see many different viewpoints on the same story. Because topics are updated continuously throughout the day, people generally see new stories every time they check Google News. This service is available in 11 languages and tailored to 34 international audiences. The Arabic-language version of Google News is available at http://news.google.com/intl/ar and now comes in 36 regional editions of Google News. In some countries, Google News is available on mobiles, through Google News for Mobile, according to Woodside. Google comes from the word Googol, the mathematical term for a one followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, Mathematics and the Imagination by Kasner and James Newman. Google s play on the term reflects the company s mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web.
