Google has just upgraded their browser-based news service so Android and iPhone devices can serve up items based on where you are. All you have to do is authorize Google News to use your location when you visit the site on your phone, and it will automatically pull up local news in a new section called “News Near You”. From there, you can change the order of sections to put local stuff as high up or far down on the list as you like.
Google puts a lot of their mobile efforts these days into making sure their services are web-based rather than standalone apps. It’s a good way of doubling up on development progress, since it’s more or less the same service being used on Android as iPhone. Google News in particular was only mobile-optimized about six months ago, so it’s good to see new features rolling out already. Google News is definitely one of the sources that we keep an eye on at IntoMobile, since you can set up RSS feeds for particular search terms.
If you want to give the new feature a shot, just hit up news.google.com in your mobile browser.
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