Wish you had an easy way to find out whether there is a coffee shop or an Apple store close by?
Well, if you are using an iPhone or an Android cell phone, now you can open up a google.com window in the browser to find out.
Google Inc. late yesterday announced Near Me Now, a local mobile app that can exhibit search results on mobile phones that show the locations of close by businesses.
The app also has a feature called Explore Right Here that's designed to allow users expand searches to get more information about a place. As a restaurant comes up in a local search, they might dig down for reviews and menus.
Over the past several months, Google has been doing quite a bit of work on serving users find local hot spots even friends in an area.
Last November, Google announced Google Latitude, an upgrade to Google Maps to find the location of friends' residences. The Google Latitude tool lets users contact friends by SMS, Google Talk or Gmail.
Well, if you are using an iPhone or an Android cell phone, now you can open up a google.com window in the browser to find out.
Google Inc. late yesterday announced Near Me Now, a local mobile app that can exhibit search results on mobile phones that show the locations of close by businesses.
"Near Me Now was designed to address two user problems," wrote Mr. John Eric Hoffman and Mr. Jussi Myllymaki, members of the Google Mobile Engineering team, in a blog post. "First, we wanted to make it fast and easy to find out more about a place in your immediate vicinity,whether you are standing right in front of a business or if it is just a short walk away. Second, we wanted to make searching for popular categories of close by places really simple. Imagine that you emerge from the subway station and you want to grab a coffee, but you don't see a coffee shop around you. You can simply search for all nearby coffee shops by using “Near Me Now”."
The app also has a feature called Explore Right Here that's designed to allow users expand searches to get more information about a place. As a restaurant comes up in a local search, they might dig down for reviews and menus.
Over the past several months, Google has been doing quite a bit of work on serving users find local hot spots even friends in an area.
Last November, Google announced Google Latitude, an upgrade to Google Maps to find the location of friends' residences. The Google Latitude tool lets users contact friends by SMS, Google Talk or Gmail.
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