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hotpot

Google adds Hotpot ratings to search results

Google users who've tapped into the company's Hotpot service can now find recommendations on hotels, restaurants, and other spots as part of their regular search results.

Launched in November, Hotpot gives you the ability to check out reviews of different establishments and rate and review your own favorite (or not so favorite) spots. So if you're looking for a local hotel, restaurant, supermarket, shopping mall, or store, your fellow Hotpot users can tell you which ones are worth checking out. And if you want to share your opinions of that terrific Mexican restaurant down the road, you … Read more

Space love

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Spotify and Shazam team up to help you find and purchase music

Sony may be announcing a new PSP soon

Facebook teams up with the Amber Alert system

Google will start selling ads on music videos in mobile YouTube

Google launches Google Places for iPhone

Microsoft launches a Web and app building site called WebMatrix

A new report in the Journal of Cosmology discusses the specifics of mating in space

CES: Verizon's 4G is more than just phones

Verizon Wireless did its best to steal the mobile show at its CES press conference yesterday. Not only did we get the long-rumored Xoom Honeycomb tablet, but the carrier also unveiled the first selection of handsets to go with its new LTE 4G network.

Admittedly, we're focused on the new handsets, like the Motorola Droid Bionic, the Samsung 4G LTE, the HTC Thunderbolt, and the LG Revolution, but Verizon had a couple of other tricks up its sleeve. In addition to Samsung's new Mobile Hotspot, which Bonnie Cha already mentioned, Big Red also unveiled another hot spot and … Read more

Google mixes local and social reviews in Hotpot

If at first, second, and third you don't succeed, try, try again.

Google is taking another crack at a social service, this time with Hotpot, a tool designed to capture local knowledge and recommend establishments such as restaurants or stores you might want to visit. Google unveiled an early version of Hotpot in a blog post yesterday, and I think Hotpot has some attributes that could help it achieve modest success.

"With Hotpot, we're making local search results for places on Google more personal, relevant, and trustworthy," product manager Lior Ron said in the post, calling … Read more