Google launches Near Me Now search feature

Google has officially launched its search by location function for mobile phones.

Called "Near Me Now," the feature finds a user's location and then allows them to search for local business listings such as shops, restaurants or public transport stations.

A post on the Google Mobile blog, by engineers John Eric Hoffman and Jussi Myllymaki, said: "We wanted to make it fast and easy to find out more about a place in your immediate vicinity, whether you're standing right in front of a business or if it's just a short walk away."

It added: "We wanted to make searching for popular categories of nearby places really simple."

The search tool was previewed in December by Vic Gundotra, the vice president of Google engineering, but is now available from its website for either Android devices - version 2.0.1 or later - or iPhones running OS 3.x.

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.