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Google has today announced that its mobile payments service, Android Pay, is now available in Belgium. Belgium is the 10th country in the world to bring support for Android Pay, and Google says that you’ll be able to use it at most of your favorite retail locations…

Whether you’re doing your daily shopping or heading for a night out, your Android phone is all you need as you walk out the door – thanks to Android Pay. Starting today, Android Pay is available in Belgium, helping you pay simply and securely with your Android phone. It’s the 10th country in the world to benefit from Android Pay.

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In light of today’s appalling events in Brussels, as well as recent violence in Turkey, Google is offering free calls using Hangouts and Google Voice to the two countries. The company has done the same after similar events in France and is rolling out additional emergency resources via Google Now and Search to those in Brussels.

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Sundar Pichai announcing Android One at Google I/O last year

Ten months after Sundar Pichai announced Android One at Google’s I/O developer conference last year, the program to bring quality and affordable smartphones to developing markets is expanding outside of Asia for the first time. Android One’s latest expansion into Turkey marks the seventh market for the program as it moves into Europe.

General Mobile will offer the first Android One smartphones, the company shared today, albeit at a higher price than Google has targeted for other Android One hardware…
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Google is constantly bringing new imagery to its Street View feature in Maps, and this week the search giant is highlighting new additions from around Belgium. In what it describes as “some of the best of Belgium”, the new Street View data shows off five different locations including the inside of a castle and a World War II memorial.
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While the release of Android 5.0 Lollipop is only now beginning to roll out to Google’s own Nexus devices, it seems that Android 5.1 could already be in the works. Dutch site AndroidWorld has reported today that Google software engineers Romain Guy and Chet Haase were spotted using a Nexus 5 running Android Lollipop MR1 at the annual Devoxx conference in Belgium.
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After first blocking Twitter across the nation, Turkey officials began blocking YouTube last week as well, after Google failed to comply with the prime minister’s request to delete all videos that it deemed critical of government officials. According to a report from the Hurriyet Daily News, YouTube is now taking legal action against the country. The company has reportedly filed a complaint with Turkey’s Constitutional Court protesting the block. Google is also appealing the reinstatement of the ban and is suing to cancel the decision all together.

In a statement to Engadget, YouTube acknowledged that it was taking legal action to restore access to its service in the country and said that it is “obviously very disappointing” that censorship is still taking place in the world today. It didn’t have any further details to share about the court battles, though. Seeing that Twitter successfully won its battle with Turkish officials, however, it seems likely that YouTube will be able to do the same.

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via <a href="https://twitter.com/zeynep/statuses/449194998102118400" target="_blank">Twitter</a>

Following the block of Twitter in Turkey by the nation’s prime minister earlier this month, Turkey’s telecommunications authority is now taking steps to block YouTube in the nation, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The move came just hours after a leaked recording published on YouTube purporting to show a conversation where Turkey’s foreign minister, spy chief and a top general appear to discuss scenarios which could lead to a Turkish attack against Jihadist militants in Syria.

This comes just days after Turkey requested that Google remove videos from YouTube that criticize the Turkish government. Google responded by refusing to accommodate the government of Turkey’s request.

Yesterday, a Turkish court ruled that the ban against Twitter should be lifted within 30 days while many users were already using DNS workarounds to access the service.
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The Turkish government sent requests to YouTube for the removal of specific videos that it deemed critical of government officials, according to the Wall Street Journal. Google refused to comply with the request, saying that there was no legal basis for the removal of the videos.

The move by the government comes after a nationwide blackout of Twitter, which officials say is due to what they deem false allegations of corruption being circulated on the network. That block can be worked around by using Google’s DNS server to access the web, though it seems that won’t be necessary to keep accessing YouTube videos critical of the nation’s leadership—unless the entire website is blocked, that is.

Photo: @FindikKahve

Turkish citizens, who found access to Twitter blocked yesterday in an apparent attempt by prime minister Recep Erdoğan to stem the spread of corruption allegations against him, have been able to work around the block by switching to Google’s public DNS service.

The Turkish government blocked access to Twitter by requiring local ISPs to change the DNS entries so that twitter.com could no longer be reached. As soon as the method of blocking access was discovered, a campaign started to spread the word that it could be circumvented by changing network settings to use Google’s DNS servers at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (update: a comment suggests the Turkish government is blocking these addresses too) … 
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We already mentioned that Google’s Chromecast is landing in 11 new countries across North America and Europe, and Google’s transcontinental roll out doesn’t stop there.

As noted by Android Police, both Google’sNexus 5 and Nexus 7 phone and tablet can now be bought on the Google Play Store in several European markets: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, and Sweden.
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Google isn’t slowing down investing in new data center operations around the world. Back in January we heard that it is expanding its Berkley County data center in South Carolina with an additional $600 million investment bringing the project up to $1.2 billion total. Today, Associated Press reports that Google is set to invest $390 million in a new expansion of its European data center in Belgium.

Internet search giant Google says it is investing 300 million euros ($390 million) to expand its continental European data center. Google Inc. said Wednesday it will upgrade the facility in Belgium to meet growing demand for its online services

Back in October of last year Google opened its data center doors to all with a new project dubbed “Where the internet lives” that gives anyone a unique behind the scenes look at its facilities responsible for handling 20 billion web pages indexed per day, 3 billion daily searches, and free mail to 425 million Gmail users.

According to a report from the Economic Times, new data centers in Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong are set to bring more speed to Google’s services for many areas. Construction on these data center sites began in 2011 at the sum of $300 million, and, according to today’s report, they are pegged to bring a 30 percent speed increase to Google services for neighboring regions. The Singapore facility is expected to go up in the next few months, while the Taiwan is pegged for the second half. No timetable has been given on the Hong Kong facility.

As an Internet-relying company, one big focus area for Google is speed. The new data centers are going to hopefully bring more speed to areas that normally aren’t as fast. Lalitesh Katragadda, head of product at Google India, explained: “Internet connectivity speed in India is not very high. These data centres will be crucial to this market due to its proximity.” Outside of Asia, Google has seven other data centers across the world. Several are in the U.S., with one each in Finland, Belgium, and Ireland as well. [Economic Times via TNW]

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