Google News finally emerges from beta

Google News was launched in September 2002

Google has taken Google News out of beta and added a feature that aims to present users with more stories that are relevant to their personal interests. 

The personalised news feature recommends stories based on the web pages a user has visited via the service in the past. It uses the same technology at the heart of Google Personalized Search and requires users to be signed in to a Google account.

The service also takes the preferences of other users into account, recommending stories that are popular with people who have similar interests.

Users can now add news sections to the Google News page that display stories based on custom keywords, allowing a sports fan, for example, to track a favourite team or a sales manager to monitor the competition.

The revamped service also lets users mix and match news sections, allowing, for example, users to put French business news next to German versions.

Launched in September 2002, Google's online news service has been available as a test version for over three years. It is currently available in 22 regional editions and 10 languages.