While the FCC is still working on E911 in the US, European carriers are beginning to roll out an equivalent service to send your phone’s location to emergency services when you dial an emergency number. Google announced today that support for this possibly life-saving feature is already built into Android as part of Play Services.
If you’re one of the 2.5M Americans planning a European vacation this summer, T-Mobile has a pretty sweet deal for its Simple Choice customers: free unlimited speed data throughout July and August, up from the normal 128Kbps limit.
The Un-carrier today announced it’s unleashing summer travel, giving customers unlimited high-speed data, up to 4G LTE speeds, throughout Europe all summer long […]
Starting July 1st all the way through August 31st, T-Mobile’s giving Simple Choice customers unlimited high-speed data across all of Europe (except Andorra) – all at absolutely no additional cost – so you can share, Skype, snap and scope every moment of your European holiday …
As Apple plays catch up in many ways, the Mountain View company is doubling down on machine learning efforts that will play an important role in future products. Earlier this week, Google launched a dedicated Machine Learning research group in Europe.
The Big Android BBQ Europe 2016 has been officially announced, and will take place at the CASA400 Conference Hotel in Amsterdam between August 14-16. Developers are invited to register now to take part in the event which promises great grilled foods, and a chance network and build on their coding abilities.
With Android N about to launch, along with Google’s Daydream VR capabilities, this could be one of the most important coding/networking events to date.
TNW reports that the European Commission is pressing ahead with proposals to make Google News pay a fee for linking to news stories on the web. The EC says that as search results include a short excerpt from the piece, and that text is protected by copyright, Google must pay.
Three European countries have tried this, and it failed in all three. In Spain, Google simply decided to close Google News in that country, and news websites lost 10-15% of their traffic overnight. Spanish publishers – who had originally demanded the law – quickly realized their mistake and tried to pass a new law that would somehow force Google to return …
Just one day after the UK’s public spending watchdog described the £130M ($185M) back-tax paid by Google in the country as “disproportionately small,” France is demanding a rather larger sum. Reuters reports that the country’s finance ministry believes Google owes €1.6B ($1.76B).
“As far as our country is concerned, back taxes concerning this company amount to 1.6 billion euros,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said […]
Earlier this month, Finance Minister Michel Sapin ruled out striking a deal with the U.S. search engine company as the British government recently did, saying the sums at stake in France were “far greater” than those in Britain …
The Public Accounts Committee, the British Parliament’s public spending watchdog, has criticized the £130M ($185M) tax deal Google struck with the UK government as “disproportionately small.” The committee also criticized the secrecy around how the sum was calculated, reports the Guardian.
Google’s controversial tax deal cannot be properly assessed by MPs because of secrecy surrounding the negotiations, according to a report by parliament’s public spending watchdog. But the deal to pay £130m in back taxes for a 10-year period seems “disproportionately small when compared with the size of Google’s business in the UK”, the public accounts committee has found.
A report published today calls for more to be done to prevent “aggressive [tax] avoidance” by multinational companies, with Google accused of hypocrisy …
Google has struck a deal with UK tax authorities to pay £130 million in back taxes. The move comes after a six year investigation by the British government and recent increasing clamp-down on tax avoidance by multinational companies.
With Google potentially facing a fine of up to $6.6B after the European Commission charged the company of abusing its dominant position in search, its lawyers have now filed a 130-page rebuttal. In it, the company attempts to use a legal technicality to argue that it cannot be fined for favouring its own products in search results …
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Huawei’s global success over recent months has been well documented. In its homeland it’s just overtaken Xiaomi as the biggest smartphone vendor, and on a global scale it’s only behind Apple and Samsung in terms of shipped devices. Much of that global success, it seems, is due to its performance in Europe where it has multiple devices ranging from low to high end and is shipping them by the bucket load…
While this might not make much sense to North American readers, high-speed trains are commonly a very smart alternative to flights when traveling across the European continent. Due to this, it makes sense that Google would add train information to Google Flights in Europe. Now, when browsing flights in Google Flights, users will be able to quickly see when it might make more sense to go by rail.
Here’s the low down:
Every year, billions of people travel across Europe for personal and professional reasons — often choosing high-speed rail as a convenient option. Now Google Flights makes it easy to compare the time and cost to ride vs. fly when trains are a logical and good alternative to many flight routes in Europe.
We started by adding train options for routes in Italy and Spain. Today we’re excited to announce a partnership with Deutsche Bahn in Germany to bring their expansive, fast rail service to Google Flights.
According to Google, this launch brings train options for 56 destinations and hundreds of routes across Northern Europe. The company says that Frankfurt-Munich and Hamburg-Stuttgart are popular routes, as well as Zurich-Frankfurt and Frankfurt-Amsterdam. As of today, you should be able to see these Northern Europe train options in the app, and even more routes in Italy and Spain, as well.
Google Spain took to its official Twitter handle to announce the news we’ve been waiting on for some time: Android One has finally landed in Europe. Having seen a rollout in several Asian and African countries, this marks the first time we’ve seen Google’s budget-friendly stock Android effort within the EU. The first European Android One handset is the BQ Aquaris A4.5, which is available to buy now direct from BQ in Spain and Portugal…
A report yesterday confirmed that Google has hired John Krafcik, former Hyundai CEO and a car industry veteran, to head up the company’s self-driving car program. It’s still unclear exactly what the implications of this move will be, however. While it seems clear that this effectively confirms Google’s intentions of more broadly rolling out the self-driving car at some point in the future, a Google executive has come out to clarify some things on Tuesday at the Frankfurt auto show…
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It seems Google’s legal woes in Europe will never end. The European Commission has long been running an investigation into whether Google was guilty of anti-competitive behaviour in Europe, which finally resulted in a filing of charges in April and a warning of large fines in June. It may be next year – some six years after the investigation began – before the final ruling.
A second anti-trust investigation into Android followed, and a third one not long afterwards, this time into its web advertising business. As if all that weren’t enough, the NY Times reports that a US law firm and European public affairs company have created a joint venture to help companies file civil claims against Google in the event that the EC finds it guilty of the first set of charges …
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OnePlus may have increased manufacturing capacity this year in preparation for the launch of its successor to the OnePlus One, the OnePlus 2, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely ironed out its processes: North American customers will have to wait a little longer to receive their phones.
In a post to its community forums, a staff member of OnePlus today said that “due to production schedules,” shipments to the United States and Canada will begin 2-3 weeks after shipments to Europe. We’re not sure exactly what this means and why it’s the case, but hiccups in the manufacturing process happen regularly before the release of new products, even to large companies like Samsung and Apple.
OnePlus says that customers in North America will still be able to place their orders starting tomorrow, August 11th, though. That’s if you even have an invite to buy one, which you’ll need. The waitlist to get yourself an invite if you weren’t an early adopter of the OnePlus One is 3 million people strong, however, so these shipment delays shouldn’t even impact you if aren’t fortunate enough to have one. Sans-invite purchases will open up at some point weeks or months after the phone goes on sale tomorrow.
Consumer insights and research firm Kantar Worldpanel has released its smartphone sales data for the second quarter of 2015, which runs from April through June, and it’s a bit of a mixed bag for Android. Growth in the United States and China, but declines in Europe. Android also saw market consolidation stateside during the three month period.
Let’s get the bad news out of the way. In the second quarter, Kantar says Android posted its “strongest year-on-year share drop in Germany” since the beginning of 2015. 81% of all smartphones sold in Germany during the same period last year were powered by Android, compared to 75% this year — other smartphone operating systems have seen gains in the country during the same period.
Google has appealed against France’s order that it must implement ‘Right to be forgotten‘ requests globally, rather than just within Europe, reports the WSJ. The company argued in a blog post that to comply would mean the Internet would only be as free as the least free country in the world …
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Samsung Pay, the manufacturer’s contactless mobile payment service, is rolling out in Europe soon thanks to a partnership with MasterCard in the EU. Once the service launches officially, card issuers will be able to enroll in MasterCard’s Digital Enablement Services (MDES), and apply the capability to all kinds of MasterCard credit, debit, prepaid credit and small business cards.
What makes Samsung Pay a different to most mobile payment services is that it works with both Magstrip and NFC POS terminals, meaning you will be able to pay virtually anywhere that has a card machine.
The Big Android BBQ is one of the biggest Android developer events of the year, and now it’s coming to Europe. Thanks an announcement over at the new Big Android BBQ Netherlands website, we know that Big Android BBQ Europe is set to take place in Amsterdam from the 12th to the 14th of November 2015…
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Just as one European antitrust case against Google reached its conclusion, with a second one underway, it may be facing a third, reports the Financial Times.
The first antitrust case found that Google abused its dominant position in search to promote its own products over that of competitors. with the company told to expect large fines. A second one is underway, to determine whether Google forced smartphone manufacturers to favor its own apps over competitor ones in return for permission to use Android.
The FT now reports that a number of companies selling online advertising have asked the European Commission to consider a third case, to investigate Google’s dominance of the web advertising business …
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HTC has confirmed that its HTC One M9+ (the boosted version of the regular M9) will be heading to Europe soon. Initially, the smartphone was only available to buy in China.
For now, that’s all the detail we have. HTC is yet to confirm which specific countries it’ll be available in, or which carriers will be selling the M9+.
To say that initial reaction to the HTC One M9 was muted would be something of an overstatement. In many ways, the One M9+ is the phone we all hoped the regular M9 would be. It features a 5.2-inch QHD (2560×1440) display, a fingerprint scanner and 20MP Duo Camera covered with sapphire crystal glass. Unlike the M9, it doesn’t use the Snapdragon 810 chip, instead opting to go with the 2.2GHz MediaTek helio X10 with 3GB RAM. It also offers expandable storage via MicroSD on top of the internal 32GB flash drive. It’s got everything any spec-hungry consumer could possibly want.
Sadly, there’s still no mention of when (or if) the phone might make it across to the States. HTC has recently announced that it is partnering with multiple U.S. carriers to launch a handful of mid-range, budget-friendly smartphones. Although that helps the manufacturer boost its presence in the American market, it’ll do little to comfort those who really wanted to buy the M9+.
It was ruled as part of the ‘right to be forgotten‘ case in Europe last year that individuals could request to have links removed from Google search results, and now another group is calling for that right to be expanded to the United States. An activist group on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission that Google needs to expand the ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling to the United States, arguing that users should have the right to have inaccurate links removed from search results (via The Hill).
Google controls most of the search engine market in Europe, and as a result receives most ‘right to be forgotten’ requests, those things where individuals can request the de-listing of links to sensitive information about themselves that are deemed out-dated or irrelevant. But more than half of requests are denied, and of those that are appealed, most of those are too denied – which the European Union says is just fine.
Google has so far been meeting the controversial ‘right to be forgotten‘ ruling in Europe by removing links only from the local site for each country – google.com remaining unaffected. A French court ruled last November that removing links from google.fr was insufficient, and ordered Google to remove the links worldwide.
Google ignored the ruling, and Reuters now reports that the French data protection regulator CNIL has given the company 15 days to comply before imposing sanctions …
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