Google News for mobile lets you keep up with the latest news, wherever you are. Today Google announces a new feature in the U.S. English edition called “News near you” that surfaces news relevant to the city you’re in and surrounding areas.
Location-based news first became available in Google News in 2008, and today there’s a local section for just about any city, state or country in the world with coverage from thousands of sources. We do local news a bit differently, analyzing every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located.
Now you can find local news on your smartphone. Here’s an example of a “News near you” mobile section automatically created for someone in Topeka, Kansas:
To use this feature, visit Google News from the browser of your Android smartphone or iPhone. If this is the first time you are visiting Google News on your phone since this feature became available, a pop-up will ask you if you want to share your location. If you say yes, news relevant to your location will appear in a new section called “News near you” which will be added at the bottom of the homepage. You can reorganize the sections later via the personalization page.
You can turn off the feature at any time either by hiding the section in your personalization settings or by adjusting your mobile browser settings.
