You can find directions on mobile phones, but I guess this makes it smoother. For it to work in countries like ours we need more better mapping.
. . . Google announced a free navigation service for mobile phones on Wednesday that will offer turn-by-turn directions, live traffic updates and the ability to recognize voice commands. The service will initially be available on only one phone, the new Motorola Droid, but will be expanded to more phones soon.
In a briefing on Tuesday in advance of its announcement, Google said that the service might be supported by advertisements in the future. That would make driving directions the latest form of information to shift from being a paid service to one that is ad-supported.
“This is consistent with a certain pattern of Google, where they are able to build volume and usage of a product and then subsidize it with advertising,” said Greg Sterling, principal of Sterling Market Intelligent, a research firm. The losers, he said, were companies like TomTom and Garmin, along with the cellphone carriers, which offer navigation services by subscription.
6 Comments
Abu Saeed Khan
Security dealership overpowers national leadership in Asia. Officials sitting at the ivory tower of National Security block the move to create and regularly update the digital maps. The law of many Asian countries forbids sending the cartographic contents to overseas. Even the gathering of such information, without so-called proper authorization, is ultra vires. An updated digital map will soon become a critical component of national development index. Being the victim of “Digital map divide” has nothing to do with having access to technology. It’s a matter of common sense. Either someone has it or lacks it.
waidyanatha
we shouldn’t be saying these things too loud – GoSL may ban Google phones in Sri Lanka, given that the use of GPS is prohibited.
If I recall correctly, correct me if I’m wrong, Dialog introduce a location identification/navigation package and GoSL put a stop to that.
Mundir Razik
This is the sorry state of affairs in our country
Hopefully we’ll get an un-ban and a chance to use this as well as new technology.
How about sending these “intellectuals” for alpha brain development workshops :D
Rohan Samarajiva
I do not think the ban is operative.
Sanjana Hattotuwa is perhaps the person most interested and informed on this subject. His writing may be found at http://ict4peace.wordpress.com/?s=GPS+mobile
Abu Saeed Khan
It is, certainly, not effectively banned. Yet the mater is a legal time bomb. THEY detonate it whenever deemed appropriate. That’s the beauty of Security Dealership!
Sri Lanka at WAIC 2026: Aligning with a More Inclusive Vision for Global AI Governance
The World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2026 was held in Shanghai from 17–20 July and brought global attention to the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), as well as the increasingly important question of who gets to shape the rules governing it. This analysis examines the alignment between Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech and Sri Lanka’s Deputy Minister of Digital Economy Eng.
LIRNEasia Senior Research Manager Merl Chandana at NewsFirst Sri Lanka’s Face To Face Programme
LIRNEasia Senior Research Manager and Team Lead for Data, Algorithms, and Policy (DAP), Merl Chandana, was interviewed on NewsFirst Sri Lanka’s Face to Face programme on 9 August 2026. The interview focused on the wonders and dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI), covering a recent cybersecurity incident where an experimental agentic AI model developed by OpenAI was manipulated to execute multiple attacks on Hugging Face.
More Than a Wheelchair: The Case for Mobility That Actually Works
The economic exclusion faced by people with mobility disabilities in Sri Lanka is substantial. Although Sri Lanka has made genuine investments in this area, yet, for many wheelchair users, the journey to work, school, university or a vocational training center remains difficult.
Links
User Login
Themes
Social
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feed
Contact
9A 1/1, Balcombe Place
Colombo 08
Sri Lanka
+94 (0)11 267 1160
+94 (0)11 267 5212
info [at] lirneasia [dot] net
Copyright © 2026 LIRNEasia
a regional ICT policy and regulation think tank active across the Asia Pacific