Official News page 5

REAL LIFE NEWS: GOOGLE MAPS SPARKS WAR

by Hazed

This is one of those incredible stories that makes me check my calendar to make sure it isn't April Fool's Day: an error in Google Maps caused a Nicaraguan military force to invade neighbouring country Costa Rica.

Yes, you read that right, Google caused a war! So much for their vaunted slogan, "don't be evil."

To be fair, you cannot really blame Google - what's unbelievable is that a military force relies on online maps to determine its policy.

What happened was that the mapping service showed the border between the two countries out of place by 3,000 metres. This sparked Nicaraguan military commander Eden Pastora to invade Costa Rica, and order troops to take down Costa Rican flags.

Official maps for both countries say the land in question belongs to Costa Rica, so why Pastora suddenly decided, on the strength of the online map, that things had changed, is unclear.

I guess it's a much more extreme version of people following sat-nav directions up goat tracks and into rivers... if the computer says something, it must be true. Madness!

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