North Korea

North Korea may not have a reputation for being a warm and friendly place, but if you ever managed to get your Dennis Rodman on and visit the country, it would be helpful to know your way around. Thankfully driving directions for select areas in North Korea are now available from Google Maps. Last year, with the help of its Google Maps Maker tool, Mountain View managed to scale its efforts to survey North Korea’s landscape. As a result, more local driving directions are starting to surface.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaJgw62intI]

Google’s Eric Schmidt was recently featured in an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett giving a rare behind-the-scenes look at Google’s second largest World offices in downtown Manhattan. While giving a tour and an exclusive interview, Schmidt explained that one of Google’s strengths is their “lack of direction.”

Schmidt also described the building that holds about 3,000 employees, and he said its staff is split “half and half” into sales/marketing and high quality engineering. He called the office the “world’s best engineering center.” Viewers got a glimpse at the desks of programmers, including some of the Google Docs team, cafeterias, hallways with fake subway grates, meat locker conference rooms, and “huddle rooms” designed to look like New York City apartments.

Viewers also learned some of Schmidt’s views on North Korea, and China’s “horrendous censorship laws”. When asked whether or not “the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs” would be born in China or the United States, Schmidt responded:

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