This article was published on October 25, 2015

‘Alexa, find me a nearby Chinese restaurant’: Amazon Echo now gives you local business info


‘Alexa, find me a nearby Chinese restaurant’: Amazon Echo now gives you local business info

If you’re not the sort of person creeped out by voice control permeating our everyday lives, then you’ll be pleased to hear that Amazon’s Echo assistant is now integrated with Yelp recommendations.

For a device that offers no visual interface but wants to help you out with the tasks in your life, it felt like a bit of an oversight that Yelp’s massive pool of business data wasn’t included up until this point but Echo owners in the US can now tap into ‘Local Search’ results for any nearby businesses.

As well as allowing you to find out what the options are around you, if you open up the Alexa app on your phone or tablet, you can also view details like the star rating and phone number for your chosen business.

Amazon says that it’ll be adding more local search features in “the coming weeks,” and that you’ll need to add an address in the settings section of your Alexa app.

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