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Samsung's watches now support ECG monitoring in 32 more countries
It still requires a paired Samsung phone
Samsung's Galaxy Watch3 and Watch Active2 both have hardware support for ECG monitoring, but it is taking a long time to show up for everyone, since the feature has to be approved by each country's health agencies. It was exclusive to South Korea until September of last year, when it was enabled for use in the United States, and now it's coming to 32 more countries.
Google Pay is rolling out more widely across Europe
Coming to Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Portugal, and Romania
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Google Pay’s tight integration with the Android OS makes it one of the most widely available and widely accepted mobile payment solutions. However, many international regions still don’t have access to this nifty tool, keeping people from the convenience of tap-and-pay on almost any Android phone. That’s changing today, at least for ten European countries where Google Pay is finally debuting.
Android Auto expands wireless compatibility to most supported countries
Only Japan and Russia are excluded
Some cars and head units are capable of displaying Android Auto from your phone wirelessly, but there are additional restrictions to the functionality — other than owning a compatible handset, you also need to live in one of the regions where the wireless connection is available. Luckily, the list of supported countries is expanding, and now you can use wireless Android Auto in almost all locations where the wired version is available, with only two exceptions: Japan and Russia.
Along a slew of announcements today, Google glanced over the fact that its Nest displays will be expanding their availability and launching in new countries. The Hub is coming to three new countries, for a total of 15, and the Hub Max is doubling its presence from three to six countries.
There are many digital ways to consume our photos and memories these days — browsing on our phones, casting to a large TV, showcasing on a Smart Display like the Google Home Hub — but if you want physical copies of your pics to flip through and enjoy, you will need to print them. Google Photos offers a photo book service in several countries, and now it's expanding to 14 more in Europe.
In late May, we noted that a Spain launch for the Home and Home Mini was imminent after the duo showed up on a Spanish retailer's site. That wasn't entirely surprising given that Google had mentioned they'd be coming to Spain sometime in 2018. A few weeks later, the Home and Home Mini are now available from the Google Store not just in Spain, but also in Austria and Ireland.
It's well known that Amazon's Alexa got a head start over the Google Assistant in the battle of the butlers, and it's most apparent when you look at the different form factors available. After the Echo Show, the alarm clock-sized Spot is the second Echo device to come with a screen and it costs around half as much. It went on sale in the US late last year, and now it's also available in the UK, Germany, and Austria.
Amazon introduced calling and messaging to its Echo speakers back in May then implemented the same feature inside the Alexa app so you could start a call or receive one from your phone, without having to be near your Echo. However, the feature had one main limitation: the person you were calling had to have an Echo or at least Alexa calling set up. Calls to phone numbers weren't possible, but now they are.Amazon secretly enabled the option a couple of days ago and has now officially added it to the Alexa app changelog. After setting up Alexa calling and messaging in the app's Conversations tab, you can say something like, "Call dad's phone," or, "Call dad's mobile phone number," and it will perform a call to the phone number. Your dad will see the number associated with your Amazon account or an "unknown caller" if you decide to opt out of showing your number. You can also call a specific number if you don't have the contact in your address book, by saying, "Call 123456789."The function is live for phone numbers in the US, Canada, and Mexico. It works on Echo devices (Echo, Echo Show, Echo Plus, Echo Dot, Echo Spot, but not on the Echo Tap seemingly) as well as through the Alexa app which was updated to add the function.
Last month, Nest announced that it would be starting to sell its products in Austria, Germany, Italy, and Spain. But at the time, the retail outlets where these products could be bought ranged from Amazon to Media Markt, ePrice, El Corte Ingles, and a couple more. They were all third-party retailers and not official Nest or Google entities.
Nest has announced today that it's expanding its products' availability to 4 new European countries: Germany, Spain, Italy, and Austria. If you live in one of these countries, you can pre-order the Nest Cam Indoor, Cam Outdoor, Learning Thermostat, and Protect today, but the availability is slated for February 15.
Congratulations, Austrian readers, you're the latest ones to get access to paid TV shows on Google Play. And they're sincere congratulations, too - it's still a pretty small club. Right now there are only eight countries that can stream TV via the Play Store (the others being the US, UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, and Japan). Compare that to over one hundred countries that have access to Google Play Movies, as listed on the Play Store's help page. Austria itself was given access to movies almost two years ago.
Remember that sweet 25% discount on the Pixel C tablet for "developers?" (Don't worry, you don't actually have to be a developer.) Originally it was only available to buyers in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, but as of today it's been updated to apply to a handful of new counties. Customers in Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland can now take 25% off of the local currency price.
Google is often accused of having a heavy focus on the United States. That's certainly true, but come on - it's a US company. Nobody seems to mind that Samsung sells a ton of phones in South Korea, or that Japan gets the newest and hottest Canon cameras before anyone else. Can you really blame a company with limited hardware resources for prioritizing a new product launch in certain markets?
The magazine rack may not be the most crowded part of the Play Store, but that doesn't mean plenty of users haven't been waiting for the most Google-y of periodical reading methods to come to their Android devices. Sure, the free stuff is available worldwide, but subscriptions are available on a country by country basis, and there are still plenty of folks around the globe who don't have access to the service.
The Fire TV Stick is a fantastic little video streaming device, according to our own Cameron Summerson. Though it lacks some of the more complex features of its big brother the Fire TV, it can handle all of Amazon's diverse digital media offerings and plenty of apps and games from the Amazon App Store to boot. Amazon customers in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Austria will have a chance to check out the Fire TV Stick for themselves on April 15th.
The landlocked European country of Austria and the Chinese island megacity of Hong Kong don't have a lot in common, but this morning (or this afternoon, depending on where you are) they can come together and bond over cheap Google streaming gadgets. The Chromecast just launched on the respective Play Stores in both territories, making it easy to get a hold of one without importing it or bribing your American buddies.
If you've been patiently waiting for carrier billing to come to your cell carrier, today might be your lucky day. Customers of Starhub in Singapore and A1 in Austria should now be able to charge app and content purchases from the the Play Store directly to their cellular accounts. A1 is the first carrier in Austria to support the feature, and Starhub is the second in Singapore.
Google's steadily rolling out Google Play gift card availability to various countries around the globe. We previously reported that Austria, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland had all made the 'coming soon' list. Now all four have bumped to officially being available now. Not only can consumers find cards in local retailers, each country has its own gift card site. Here's Spain's below.
A few days ago we caught wind of the existence of Google Play gift cards in Austria. It was good news, though it came as a surprise as Austria's name was nowhere to be found on the list of countries Google sells gift cards in. Now it is, though oddly still listed as 'coming soon.' Nevertheless, Austria isn't the only country to make an appearance. Now we see that Italy, Mexico, and Switzerland have joined the list as well (with Spain also still listed as being on its way).
Our Austrian friends might be in for a surprise the next time they stroll into a local retailer. Google Play gift cards are now live in Austria with no official announcement. The Google support page hasn't even been updated to list Austria yet. That's cool and all, but how about a little heads up next time, Google?