Google improves hotel and restaurant search features for Android

With Cortana arriving on Windows Phone 8.1, the battle of the digital assistants — Cortana, Siri and Google Now — is well and truly underway. Google has just announced that its voice search tool on Android is getting a little bit smarter with more comprehensive filters in searches for nearby hotels and restaurants: You can sort your results based on price ranges, customer ratings and even opening hours. “It’s hard to make last-minute hotel and restaurant reservations in your price range, in the right neighborhood and with the right flair,” says Google in a post on Google+. The example given by the developers is “restaurants in downtown Austin” — there are filters available for you to swipe between, based on price, rating and cuisine. An additional button enables you to focus in on venues that are currently open.