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What you really want is to say/type "Hey Google. I have a conference at the Javits and I want to stay somewhere within a 20 minute walk near some good restaurants. And I don't want to pay more than $300 per night." You pull back to what you really want to do and you realize just how horrible and limited the current systems are.

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Agreed. Is that a problem that can be solved and what keeps companies from doing this?

I assume the usual answer. $$. To do a really good job, you need to program in local knowledge that probably isn't easily encoded in algorithms.

Manhattan is actually pretty easy. In many parts of Manhattan it really is mostly about just drawing a reasonable bounding box.

But for a random location, getting to a result that you'd get conversing with an intelligent assistant familiar with the area is going to be tough. You have to apply a lot of your own judgement and, even then, I definitely mess up now and then with cities I'm unfamiliar with.

And most people pay for low prices. Not incrementally more sophisticated recommendation engines.

For sure!

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