Next time you dive into Yelp to look for restaurants or other places to go, you might see some of your previously posted content turning up in the app’s scrolling home feed.
That’s because Yelp is using AI to stitch together videos made up of users’ photos, footage, and reviews about different places that you might want to visit.
The crowdsourced review site started testing the system last year (you can see it in action in the video at the top of this page), The Verge reported, and now looks set to roll it out more widely.
You’ll be able to try the feature by scrolling through the home feed on Yelp’s app and then tapping on a place that looks appealing. If an AI video is available, it’ll start playing automatically. The video example above features an Italian restaurant called Cesarina.
It shows, somewhat jarringly, a video clip of a dessert followed by a main dish (isn’t it usually the other way around?), with an AI-generated voiceover offering an introduction to the eatery. The video also suggests checking out the restaurant’s “pasta station” where “skilled hands shape the freshest ingredients into culinary masterpieces.”
Yelp’s AI video combines footage and photos uploaded by users in their reviews of the restaurant, with the AI commentary also drawn from user comments. At the moment, it’s not possible for reviewers to opt-out of having their content included in the AI videos. And if anyone viewing a video finds it offensive or inaccurate, they can easily report it by tapping the three dots at the top right of the display and adding their complaint.
The new feature is a quick and easy way to get an overview of a range of places, and the better the uploaded content, the more chance that it has of appearing in the feed.
For restaurants and other attractions, the videos could lead to an uptick in visitors, so it looks like a win-win for both parties.
A virtual private network (VPN) encrypts your internet traffic and routes it through a server run by the VPN provider. Websites see the VPN server’s IP address instead of yours, and you can get around geo-blocks, censorship, and ISP throttling. The best VPN services are paid, but there are still a handful of free options that do the job well.
Most free VPNs come with a hidden cost, because running servers isn’t cheap and a company that doesn’t charge you has to make its money somewhere else. Many do so by logging your browsing activity and selling it to advertisers, while others flood you with ads and track you across apps.
There's nothing quite like curling up with a good book on a cold evening. As much as I love the feel of a physical book, books take up a lot of space, and carrying more than one on a trip quickly becomes a chore. That's where e-readers come in, and the Amazon Kindle remains one of the best options.
Amazon just refreshed its Kindle lineup with thinner, lighter designs, a new flush-front display, and colors that wrap from front to back. Add the Kindle Scribe and the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft to the mix, and you have more choices than ever before.
A good Android app should earn its place on your phone. It might make an everyday task easier, handle something the built-in software can't, or let you change an experience that never quite worked for you.
These 20 apps cover everything from quick notes and password management to automation and local file sharing. Some are free, others charge for advanced features, and a few take some effort to figure out. The point isn't to install them all. It's to find the ones that make your phone work better for you.