Google goes local with mobile location-based news

Photo by Spencer E Holtaway (flickr.com/photos/spencereholtaway) some rights reserved

The regular requests for my location have so far been the most annoying feature of Google’s otherwise useful iPhone app.

Now this hitherto unexplained – and constant – request starts to make (a little) sense as Google pushes into local, location-based news for mobiles.

News Near You is a new feature on Google’s mobile app that analyses both the content of a story and the location of the source to find news about particular cities and their surrounding area.