At its Search On event today, Google unveiled several new ways to help people more easily find what they're looking for. Some things can be trickier to locate than most, like a particular style of clothing or a certain fragrance. But when it comes to food that makes your mouth and eyes water, Google thinks it can help. Engadget spoke with general manager of local search Yul Kwon to learn how the company believes it can bring people to the dishes they're craving.

Kwon's lived many lives. You might remember him as the winner of Survivor: Cook Islands, but he's also been a management consultant, a law practitioner and the owner of several Red Mango franchise locations in California. "I lost about 20 pounds during the show and when I came back, I was so hungry," he said. "I basically just sat there and ate everything and anything I could get my hands on."

His ravenous spiral led to a "40-pound weight swing," which drove Kwon to find healthier alternatives to junk food and dessert. On a trip to Los Angeles, Kwon discovered frozen yogurt and was hooked. But the dearth of high quality frozen yogurt stores in the Bay Area at the time meant it was hard for him to find the tasty treat at home. Inspired, and driven by the desire to make an "unlimited supply of frozen yogurt for me to eat myself," Kwon opened stores in downtown Palo Alto, San Carlos and San Jose. 

Over time, competition in the froyo business grew intense, as more and more stores opened to cater to growing demand. "At some point everyone and their grandma was opening a frozen yogurt store," Kwon said. "A lot of the stores that opened were lower quality and lower cost and so they were not as healthy."

Max Morse / reuters

Kwon said that amid this spike, it not only became became tough to differentiate his business from the competition, but the tools to reach and engage with customers just weren't available. "It was harder to track new customers to get the word out, and we didn't really have great tools to drive word of mouth or use technology to drive awareness."

Eventually, the financial crisis of 2008 became the final straw and Kwon had to close his businesses. 

This is a story that's all too familiar. Small, local businesses lacking the tools to reach larger audiences eventually have to cave to competition and shutter. Though services like GrubHub and DoorDash have made it easier for people to discover restaurants to order food from, they often charge high fees and offer businesses little control over how they're presented. 

These days, companies turn to social media to reach would-be customers, and making an attractive profile can determine how successful you are. Skills that have little to do with running a restaurant, like photography and caption-writing, are now key to bringing in money. Though it's not technically social media, Google Maps and Search results also play crucial parts in whether a business thrives or fails. If a restaurant's Maps listing has a rating that's lower than four stars, or if it doesn't have a menu available for perusal, a potential diner can quickly be turned off. 

Google

Updated digital menus and vibe checks

One of these potential roadblocks is fairly easy to solve. Not only does Google already provide a digital menu on most listings, it also groups user-submitted pictures of physical menus for easier reference. The company also announced today that it's expanding its coverage of digital menus, "making them more visually rich and reliable. 

"We combine menu information provided by people and merchants, and found on restaurant websites that use open standards for data sharing," Sophia Lin, the company's general manager of Food and Search, wrote in a blog post. Google also uses image and language understanding technologies like its Multitask Unified Model to scrape available data and produce these menus, which will also showcase most popular dishes and call out different dietary options (starting with just vegetarian and vegan).

Just like Neighborhood Vibe that Google just announced for Maps, a new feature is also coming to Search to help capture and relay to users what makes a restaurant stand out. "Star ratings are helpful, but they don't tell you everything about a restaurant," Lin wrote. In the coming months, listings will show pictures and reviews that the company's machine learning systems determined are representative of how a place feels. 

Identify and find specific dishes

Google also wants to help people find the exact food items they're craving. "Our research shows 40 percent of people already have a dish in mind when they search for food," Lin wrote. "So to help people find what they're looking for, in the coming months you'll be able to search for any dish and see the local places that offer it."

Lin gave the example of soup dumplings, which she said is a family favorite. The new multisearch near me tool can not only identify the type of xiao long bao (the Chinese name for soup dumplings, or XLB for the well-informed) in a picture, but can also tell you where you can buy it near you. You can also get more specific with your search. 

According to Lin, "In the past, searching for soup dumplings near me would show a list of related restaurants. With our revamped experience, we’ll now show you the exact dish results you’ve been looking for. You can even narrow your search down to spicy dishes if you want a bit of a kick"

Of course, these new tools alone won't help struggling small businesses thrive, but they do help users better understand what restaurants have to offer. 

When Kwon recounts his experiences running his Red Mango franchises, he feels on hindsight that "it was hard for people to really understand how we differed from other yogurt shops, It wasn't any like one place that could go to to really help them find what they're looking for."

Kwon said he learned from that ordeal how hard it was to be successful as a small business and wanted to do something to help people in similar situations. He believes that building a set of tools that help small businesses succeed is how he can make a difference.

"Ultimately, technology can be the great equalizer." he said. "It can be the thing that helps small businesses can change on an even playing field within the big guys." While today's announcements on their own don't seem to specifically target local businesses trying to reach customers in their community, Kwon says the updates "help people connect and find the types of foods that they're looking for," which he said is part of helping build relationships between people and their communities.

I want to see Google do more to help and empower small local businesses trying to engage with their communities and customers, and though I'm underwhelmed by today's announcements on that front, I am hopeful for more to come.  

If you recently traveled to a new city, there’s a good chance you used Maps to plan your trip. Google wants to make that process easier. Over the next few months, you can expect Google to expand the availability of its 3D “Immersive View” feature. As of today, you can use Maps to see photorealistic aerial views of more than 250 global landmarks, including Tokyo Tower and the Acropolis of Athens.

In Los Angeles, London, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo, it’s also possible to see a preview of where Google plans to take the feature in the coming months and years. In those cities, Immersive View includes a timeline functionality, allowing you to see a simulation of how a popular landmark will look at a specific time of day. Additionally, Immersive View works in conjunction with Street View, so it’s possible to explore nearby restaurants and shops. The idea here is to take the guesswork out of planning to visit popular landmarks and tourist destinations.

Google

Live View is also about to get an upgrade. In LA, New York, San Francisco, Paris and Tokyo, Google is adding search functionality to the augmented reality feature. Now, if you’re looking for an ATM, restroom or a place to sit down and grab a bite to eat, you can use Live View to point you in the right direction. Android and iOS users can expect the updated feature to arrive on their devices in the coming months. Last but not least, Google announced today it’s making its eco-friendly routing feature available to third-party developers. That should allow companies like Uber and Lyft to add the technology to their apps, helping their drivers create fewer emissions.

Google is shaking up Search in terms of both entering queries and how results are displayed, and you can expect to see the changes in the wild in the coming months. For instance, you may soon find it easier to get answers to questions before you finish writing them. When you start typing into the search box, Google will display badges with autocomplete suggestions, as well as related themes and categories. The goal, as ever, is to help you get to relevant results faster.

When it comes to search results, expect Google to place greater onus on videos, including more vertical clips. According to Google, this is in service of diversifying the types of content formats that users see in results. It builds on an approach centered around browsable, visual-first results and endless scrolling on mobile (where vertical videos thrive). You'll see related topics as you scroll too. When you look up a city, you might see photos of landmarks, directions to get there, the current weather and tips for travelers. In addition, the search results may include videos from creators who have visited the city.

It could be easier for you to go down the rabbit hole on something you're interested in too. Google detailed some "drill down" features that are based on a deep understanding of how people search. You'll be able to add and remove related topics to see more detail or focus on the things you care about. You may discover things you weren't aware of. Google used Oaxaca's beaches and musical traditions as examples. That could help you find inspiration for planning trips, for instance.

This seems like an evolution of related searches. It's described as a streamlined and unified approach to helping folks explore topics by organizing results in a more logical way. Ultimately, it's all about simplifying Search and getting you the information you need (or didn't know you need) more quickly.

Google may soon give you a feel for a city district before you've ever set foot in it. The company is introducing a "neighborhood vibe' feature for Maps on Android and iOS that will help you learn what's new and worth seeing in a particular area through info and imagery. You may discover a historic quarter full of landmarks and museums, or the hottest restaurants in the chic part of town.

The technology relies on a blend of AI with community contributions to Google Maps' landscape, such as photos and reviews. If all goes well, the feature will evolve in sync with the neighborhood itself.

The vibe check will roll out to Maps users worldwide in the "coming months." No, this won't make you as knowledgeable as a resident. However, it might help you plan a vacation or move — instead of searching blindly for things to do, you'll have a decent sense of what's popular with locals.

Multisearch, a Google Lens feature that can search images and text simultaneously, will soon be more broadly available after arriving in the US as a beta earlier this year. Google says multisearch will expand to more than 70 languages in the coming months. The company made the announcement at an event focused on Search.

In addition, the Near Me feature, which Google unveiled at I/O back in May, will land in the US in English sometime this fall. This ties into multisearch, with the idea of making it easier for folks to find out more details about local businesses. Multisearch is largely about enabling people to point their camera at something and ask about it while they're using the Google app. You could aim your phone at a store and request details about it, for instance, or ask about a screenshot of any unfamiliar item, like an item of clothing. You could also look up what a certain food item is called, like soup dumplings or laksa, and see what restaurants around you offer it.

Also on the Lens front, there will be some changes when it comes to augmented reality translations. Google is now employing the same artificial intelligence tech it uses for the Pixel 6's Magic Eraser feature to make it appear like it's replacing the original text, instead of superimposing the translation on top. The idea is to make translations look more seamless and natural.

Google is also adding shortcuts to the bottom of the search bar in its iOS app, so you'll more easily find features like translating text with your camera, hum to search and translating text in screenshots.

While new gadgets tend to dominate Amazon's annual Devices and Services Event, the company still has a few upgrades planned for its ubiquitous digital assistant. So here are all the fresh features and skills Amazon is planning to add to Alexa. 

For people trying to shop for a new outfit, the Echo Show is getting an AI-based skill that allows it to more easily search for clothes using a customer's references or specific characteristics. For example, Amazon says you can ask things like "Alexa, show me the one-shoulder top." Amazon explained the skill was created using the Alexa Teacher Model, which was trained using images and captions sourced from the company's product database. 

In the car, Alexa is also getting a new Roadside Assistance feature that will connect you with an agent in case you need do something like calling a tow truck or get help changing a flat tire. On top of that, BMW is expanding its partnership with Amazon, with BMW announcing plans to build its next-generation voice assistant using the Alexa Custom Assistant solution. BMW's goal is to support more natural language controls that are easy to use while driving. 

Alexa is also getting integration with the new Halo Rise, allowing it to do things like automatically turn off your lights when you get in bed or play your favorite song to help you wake up in the morning. Amazon will also be adding the Fire TV experience to the Echo Show 15, so users will be able to watch all their favorite shows or purchased content on a smaller screen. There's also a new Alexa Voice Remote Pro for Fire TVs, that allows you to more easily switch between various inputs, control routines and use your voice to find the remote if you lose it thanks to the controller's built-in speaker. 

Meanwhile for Disney fans, Amazon is adding a new "Hey Disney" command that gives anyone with a Kids+ subscription access to immersive entertainment experiences featuring big-name Disney characters. 

Follow all of the news from Amazon's event right here!

Amazon's Fire TV Cube has always been a bit of a curiosity. Clearly, the company wanted to combine an Echo Dot with a Fire TV streaming player, but it took a few tries before we genuinely liked it. Now with the third-generation Fire TV Cube, Amazon is giving it a more premium sheen with a cloth-covered design, a more powerful 2GHz octa-core processor, and an HDMI input connection for plugging in your cable box. Doing so will let you tune the Fire TV Cube to specific channels with voice commands—you know, for those of you who can't let your local sports go.

Given that new hardware, Amazon says the Fire TV Cube will feel much faster than before. It's also the first streamer on the market to include support for WiFi 6E, which should help when you're dealing with huge 4K streams. When it comes to older content, Amazon has also included Super Resolution support for upscaling HD video into 4K. It's unclear if that will actually help older content look better, but we're looking forward to testing it out.

In addition to the $140 Fire TV Cube, Amazon also announced the $35 Alexa Voice Remote Pro, which is unfortunately sold separately. It features a backlight and programmable buttons for launching your favorite streaming apps. Perhaps most useful though? There's a Remote Finder feature, which allows you to ask Alexa to trigger a noise in case the Remote Pro gets stuck in your couch. That's one big advantage it has over Apple's easy-to-lose Apple TV remote.

Amazon

Follow all of the news from Amazon's event right here!

It's Amazon's turn to host a major fall hardware event, and the company took the opportunity to announce some news for the Echo Show 15. It will bring the Fire TV experience to the smart display for both new and existing owners of the device as a free update.

The move makes a lot of sense when you consider that over 70 percent of Echo Show 15 users watched videos on the device last month, according to Amazon. The company says users will be able to start playing shows, movies and live TV with Alexa voice commands, as well as through touch control. You'll have the option of pairing the third-gen Fire TV Alexa Voice Remote to Echo Show 15 too. A new Fire TV widget will include shortcuts to recently used streaming apps, content you watched lately and your watchlist.

Follow all of the news from Amazon's event right here!

While Amazon is widely known for its Ring brand of doorbell camera home security systems, the company last year introduced a more mobile, and way more adorable, monitoring platform: Astro. The $1,500 automaton essentially serves as an Alexa on wheels, trundling about your home like an AIBO that also manages your calendar and doubles as a guard dog. On Wednesday, Amazon unveiled a new iteration of Astro, one that can now detect the presence of your real cat or dog. 

The new feature will trigger while the Astro is "on patrol" around your home. When it encounters your pet, Astro will capture a short video clip of them and share it with you via Live View (part of the Alexa Together system). 

"You can use Live View to tell your dog to get off the couch, or you can take a picture of what they’re doing to add to your pet scrapbook," Ken Washington, vice president of Consumer Robotics, said during the event. "We think this feature will be especially useful by providing a live connection to your pets so that you have peace of mind about them, no matter where you are."

Astro is also gaining some added situational awareness. The robot can already map out its patrol routes through your home but, with a new multimodal AI capability, Astro will actively pay attention to "things in your home that you want it to learn about—and better notify you if something isn’t right," Washington said.  

Developing...

Blink, Amazon’s other home security company, primarily focuses on small, affordable and mostly battery-powered devices. Today, however, it’s launching a Floodlight Camera that, unlike the existing model, can be wired in to your home’s external power supply. The Blink Wired Floodlight Camera offers a beefy 2600-lumen LED light, a 1080p live view and two-way audio, as well as enhanced motion detection. That latter feature is aided by Amazon’s AZ2 Neural Edge Processor, which enables the processing to be handled locally, rather than in the cloud.

Blink / Amazon

At the same time, Blink is also trotting out a pan-and-tilt mount to its indoor Mini security camera. The Blink Mini Pan Tilt (the lack of an and in that name should bother you as much as it bothers me) attaches to the base of your mini to offer 360-degree coverage of a room. You can also attach it to a tripod or, for an extra fee, a wall mount if your needs are more specific. In terms of pricing, the Floodlight Camera will arrive shortly for $100 while the Pan Tilt (yup, still bothers me) is up for pre-order today for $30, or bundled with a Mini camera for $60.

Follow all of the news from Amazon's event right here!