According to a recent report at Atlantic Media-owned business news site Quartz, Internet search giant Google is currently carrying out tests of a local news product as part of its Google Now service, which is a built-in service in all new Android handsets and is available on the iPhone via the Google Search app.

The report, by Quartz's writer Christopher Mims, said that the disclosure about Google's beta test of location-based news product for Google Now came from a Google staffer - Johanna Wright, Google's VP of search and assist - during the course of a recent interview, which centered largely on the new search products that Google is presently working on.

Going by the information shared by Wright with Mims, "a very local hyper-local news card" for Google Now is one of the products which are being tested by Google at present.

Wright said that the under-testing local news product is a "really useful" service, as it provides the users information about the happenings in their neighborhood.

Noting that Google's new local news product is - as of now - only live in an "experimental version," Wright said in a typical statement: "We do A/B tests [of versions of Google web services], trying to get feedback from people in the market."