Official Google Australia Blog: Google Currents goes international

Australia Blog

News and notes from Google Down Under

Google Currents goes international

Friday, April 13, 2012

We strive to give you beautiful and simple ways to experience all the content the web has to offer, such as sharing photos on Google+ and watching YouTube videos. Today we’re expanding our content offering in Australia with the introduction of Google Currents, an app for Android and iOS devices that lets you explore online magazines and other content with the swipe of a finger.

With Google Currents, you can browse and read full length articles from top international publishers in a format optimised for smartphones and tablets, allowing you to navigate intuitively between words, pictures and video on large and small screens alike, even if you’re offline.

After the U.S. launch, the top features readers requested were to make the app available internationally and to allow content to sync in the background. We’ve heard you, and in addition to making Google Currents available around the world, we’ve added a new dynamic sync feature, improving your reading experience with fresh content wherever you are.

Read in more places
With this update, we’ve made Google Currents available globally, wherever apps are available on Google Play and the Apple App Store. International publishers, using Google Currents Producer, can now begin adding local content, choosing whether to make it available globally and whether to enable auto-translation. For example La Stampa in Italy, Financial Times Deutschland in Germany, Neue Zürcher Zeitung in Switzerland and Hindustan Times in India have already started publishing editions with local content. You can also add your favorite local blogs which are instantly converted into Currents editions.

In Australia we’ve worked with more than a dozen local publishing partners to offer editions with full-length articles from publications including ABC News, Gizmodo Australia, mUmbrella, and Gizmag. We’re also offering a self-service platform to make content available on Google Currents, giving Australian publishers the flexibility to design, brand and customise their web content.

Read in your favorite language
To help you enjoy content in your preferred language, we’ve also integrated Google Translate into Google Currents. Just press the globe icon while reading an edition, and you can automatically translate that edition to one of 38 supported languages. So it’s easier than ever to keep up with Italian sports (Corriere dello Sport) or German sport (kicker.de).

Read fresh content, automatically
With our new dynamic sync feature, you’ll always have fresh content to read. As you open each edition, new content is dynamically delivered, using a minimum of your phone or tablet's battery and storage. Those of you who travel on planes and trains can choose which editions you would like fully packaged for offline reading, including images.

Learn more about what’s new in Currents here.

Google Currents is now available for download on Google Play (for devices running Android 2.2 and above) and in the Apple App Store, wherever apps are available. Whether you’re a reader or a publisher, we hope that Google Currents helps you easily experience the best content on the web, now in even more languages.

Google Currents launched in the U.S. in December. We’re pleased at how many readers and publishers have begun using it there -- nearly 400 publisher editions and over 14,000 self-produced editions are now available, and publishers can now choose to make these editions available worldwide.

Posted by Mussie Shore, Product Manager