Google extends African reach

Search giant extends African home pages and releases new East African Google Gadgets.

Search engine giant Google now has 26 customised country home pages in Africa. The most recent of these is the homepage for Mozambique (www.google.co.mz).

The Mozambique homepage is also Google's third for Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa - the others being Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe.

Meanwhile, Google has also announced the winners of its recent competition for East Africa-based Google Gadget developers. The six-month long competition was aimed at encouraging East African developers to create Google Gadgets relevant to their countries.

The overall winner of the competition was Antoine Nzeyimana of Rwanda who created an Igisoro Game, a numbers game played widely in Rwanda.

Other winners in the competition included charting applications, a random proverb application and tools for deaf users.

A full list of winners can be found at http://www.google.com/intl/en/events/eagadgetcompetition