Now, Order Food Straight From Google Search Results

Google on Friday added a feature that lets people in the US order food directly from searches for local restaurants.

The move came as the Internet titan manoeuvres to stay in tune with the trend of smartphones being used to seek out local venues and weave itself into online commerce.

"Whether you're craving deep dish pizza or pad thai, starting today you can order food from some of your favourite restaurants directly from Google search results," the California-based firm said in a post on its Google+ social network page.

Search queries for nearby restaurants will be served up with an option to "place an order."

"When you search for a nearby restaurant on your phone, you'll see an option to "Place an order" in the search results. Just tap that, choose the delivery service and you'll be taken to their website to complete the order."

Tapping the option icon will let people place food orders with Seamless, Grubhub, Eat24, BeyondMenu, Delivery.com or MyPizza.com, according to Google, which is working to expand the number of delivery providers. The service is live only in the United States right now, but is likely to be rolled out to other countries as well.

Last week, Google expanded 'Ok Google' voice search and actions to include select third-party apps on Android.

"Today, we launched our first set of partners for custom Google voice actions on Android," Google said while announcing the feature. "We're currently piloting custom voice actions with a select group of partners, but we plan to open it up more widely in the future - and we'd love to hear your ideas for actions you'd like to implement."

This means users can now say commands like "Ok Google, Shazam this song," and Google will invoke Shazam's service to identify the song. Apps like Flixster, Instacart, NPR One, Shazam, TripAdvisor, TuneIn Radio, Walmart, Wink, and Zillow now support 'Ok Google' integration.

Written with inputs from AFP