Charlotte Henry

Google is to invest $1 billion into partnerships with news publishers, CEO Sundar Pichai announced in a blog post on Thursday. The product is called News Showcase, and will start rolling out in Germany and Brazil today, before expanding into other countries.

News Showcase is made up of story panels that will appear initially in Google News on Android. The product will launch soon on Google News on iOS, and will come to Google Discover and Search in the future. These panels give participating publishers the ability to package the stories that appear within Google’s news products, providing deeper storytelling and more context through features like timelines, bullets and related articles. Other components like video, audio and daily briefings will come next… We’ve signed partnerships for News Showcase with nearly 200 leading publications across Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, the U.K. and Australia. The publications include award-winning national titles like Der Spiegel, Stern, Die Zeit, Folha de S.Paulo,Band and Infobae alongside regionally and locally significant publications such as El Litoral, GZH, WAZ and SooToday. The number of news publications will grow as we work to expand News Showcase to other countries including India, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Some users of the England and Wales COVID-19 exposure notification app are mistakenly being sent messages that tell them to self-isolate. Sky News reported that they are test messages sent by Apple and Google, and this can be checked by trying to open the message to self-isolate.

The Department of Health and Social Care confirmed it was a “default message” sent by Google and Apple – the makers of the app’s technology – but it had already caused confusion… A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson confirmed that default messages from Google and Apple would disappear or not be able to be clicked on. An official Test and Trace instruction to self-isolate would produce a message inside the app which said: “Please stay at home and self-isolate to keep yourself and others safe.” Apple or Google notifications, the spokesperson said, could be called “COVID-19 EXPOSURE LOGGING” or “COVID-19 Exposure Notifications”. It is not currently possible to turn off default messages

Belgium released its COVID-19 app on Wednesday, AppleInsider reported. The tool is based on the API designed by Apple and Google.

Belgium’s new “Coronalert” COVID-19 contact detection and tracing app is available to download starting on Wednesday. Like many others in circulation, the app utilizes the Apple-Google framework for exposure notifications and is available for both Apple and Android phones. The app was developed by Belgian companies DevSide and Ixor, and audited for security by NVISO. The app itself is based on the Corona-Warn-App that Germany uses, as well as the European open standard DP3T (Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing.) Like many countries, Belgium uses the app to help alert users to high-risk exposures to those who have tested positive for COVID-19.

Google’s bid to purchase Fitbit is set to receive EU approval, according to Reuters. It comes after the tech giant made a variety of concessions. It comes as the firms look to challenge Apple’s strong position in the wearables market.

Google said it had offered to restrict the use of Fitbit data for Google ads and would also tighten the monitoring of that process, confirming a Reuters report. The offer is based on a July proposal. “We’re also formalizing our longstanding commitment to supporting other wearable manufacturers on Android and to continue to allow Fitbit users to connect to third party services via APIs (application programming interfaces) if they want to,” Google said in a statement. Third parties will also continue to have access to Fitbit users’ data, with users’ consent.

The premium fitness subscription marketplace is an increasingly crowded one. Cult of Mac asks whether Apple’s Fitness+ offering can thrive.

Established players like Peloton and Adidas already have a significant head start. But Apple is in great shape to give them a run for their money. Fitness+ is a logical next step for Cupertino. The upcoming service plugs some significant gaps in Apple’s fitness offering while intelligently leveraging the power of its platform to gain an advantage… Apple Fitness+ aims to re-create the experience of a studio class at home by providing on-demand workout videos featuring trainers who show you what to do on screen. There are 21 trainers in total. (If you want to get to know them now, check out the Apple Fitness+ Instagram page, which includes links to each of their personal profiles). They look like a fun, talented and diverse team… Unlike Apple, Peloton offers live video streams as well as on-demand ones. During a live stream, the trainer can actually see your workout stats and even give you a shout-out to keep you motivated.

Steve Jobs provided all sorts of insights into people and leadership during his lifetime. Inc shared the trait he believed revealed high intelligence.

“A lot of [what it means to be smart] is the ability to zoom out, like you’re in a city and you could look at the whole thing from the 80th floor down at the city. And while other people are trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B reading these stupid little maps, you could just see it in front of you. You can see the whole thing,” Jobs says in the talk.  That’s a fascinating conception of smarts, but it raises an inevitable question: How do you develop the ability to get a bird’s eye view of a situation in this way? The answer, Jobs goes on to say, is to be an intellectual omnivore, exploring the world in unique and unexpected ways.  “You have to not have the same bag of experiences as everyone else does, or else you’re gonna make the same connections and you won’t be innovative. […] You might want to think about going to Paris and being a poet for a few years. Or you might want to go to a third-world country–I’d highly advise that. Falling in love with two people at once. Walt Disney took LSD,” he says.

Apple may have to open up its Apple Pay technology rival providers. That’s according to a EU document due to be published next week, seen by Bloomberg News.

The report is set to be unveiled next week by the European Commission as part of a package of policy proposals. It includes a footnote to a competition case launched by the European Commission’s antitrust arm in June, which is seeking to assess whether the iPhone giant unfairly blocks other providers from using the tap-and-go functionality on its smartphones. “In parallel with its ongoing and future competition enforcement, the Commission will examine whether it is appropriate to propose legislation aimed at securing a right of access under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions, to technical infrastructures considered necessary to support the provision of payment services,” the EU says in the document.