Yelp is adopting a new strategy to boost its presence in other apps with a new developer program called Fusion. It offers developers a “revamped” portal, as well as more Yelp data for developers use in their own apps.
You may have noticed when trying to view photos of food from a restaurant via Yelp through a third-party service, the images have a low resolution. The new Yelp Fusion Application Program Interface, or API, fixes that, offering developers access to three photos in their original resolution; three review excerpts; the option to cache content for up to 24 hours; and the ability to search filters for price level and open hours.
Other tools include an autocomplete for the keyword, business name, and business category search, as well as “transact-able businesses in the food delivery category,” according to Yelp.
In layman’s terms, developers of other apps will be able to integrate locally crowdsourced reviews from Yelp into their own app, and add more data than ever. One such example is SoundHound’s Hound voice assistant, which lets you ask it for nearby restaurants — that pulls the data from Yelp. Now, Hound already does this, but the Fusion API allows Hound to pull even more reviews than it previously could.
“We think the Yelp app is pretty effective, but there are other places that consumers are and we want to be where they are and help them find great local businesses,” Chad Richard, senior vice president of business and corporate development at Yelp, told Digital Trends. “Yelp Fusion is really about getting it out to all those developers.”
The API was built from the ground up, and offers advanced machine learning to identify the best three photos that represent a business to developers. Other information like hours of operation and pricing are also now accessible.
Several apps are already using the new Yelp Fusion API, including Blippar, Hound, Thingthing, Softbank’s Pepper, and Bar Roulette.
Motorola has built some of my favorite foldables and flagship phones. I had a great time with both the Razr Fold and last year's Signature. So when the company began teasing the Signature 27, I couldn't help be excited. The new model comes with Qualcomm's blazing-fast Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, and better still, it is finally getting a proper global release.
One of the reasons I was obsessed with the last-gen Signature was its amazing price tag. But it seems like that budget flagship dream might be officially dead. Portuguese retailer MegaPC has prematurely listed a 12GB RAM and 512GB storage Signature 27 in Pantone Coal Smoke for €1,594.90 (approx. $1,775).
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.