Work out smarter and understand your body better with the new Fitbit Charge 6, available for pre-order today. (1)

Charge 6 helps you stay on track with your goals thanks to advanced health sensors that, combined with a new machine learning algorithm, bring you our most accurate heart rate tracking on a Fitbit tracker yet,(2) and the ability to connect to compatible gym equipment and fitness apps to see your real-time heart rate during workouts. Plus, it’s helpful when you’re on the go with its new haptic side button, 7 days of battery life (3), and the ability to do even more right from your wrist — like control YouTube music and use Google Maps and Wallet. 

Here’s a look at all the ways the Fitbit Charge 6 can take your health and fitness up a notch. 

Take a beat with improved heart rate tracking

Charge 6 debuts the most accurate heart rate on a Fitbit tracker yet, thanks to an improved machine learning algorithm that brings over innovation from the Pixel Watch and has been optimised for a tracker. Heart rate tracking during vigorous activities — like HIIT workouts, spinning and rowing — is up to 60% more accurate than before, giving you added confidence in your health stats.(4) Better heart rate accuracy means even more precise readings for you — from calories and Active Zone Minutes to your Daily Readiness Score (5) and Sleep Score. You can still assess your heart rhythm for atrial fibrillation on-wrist with the ECG app,(6) and get high and low heart rate notifications, keeping your beat in check at all times.

See your live heart-pumping progress and connect to fitness apps and machines

Connect your Charge 6 to compatible exercise apps and machines to stay motivated at home or at the gym. Easily and securely connect to compatible exercise equipment with encrypted Bluetooth — from partners like NordicTrack, Peloton and Concept2 (7) — to see your real-time heart rate displayed live during a workout. You can also connect to see your real-time heart rate within popular Android and iOS phone or tablet fitness apps such as Peloton. 

Fuel your fitness routine with more ways to track workouts and stay motivated

With even more personalised ways to track and stay motivated during workouts, you’re sure to get your movement in. Choose from more than 40 exercise modes — including 20 new options like HIIT, strength training and snowboarding— to get important workout stats. Need to track an outdoor workout? Leave your compatible phone(8) at home thanks to Charge 6’s built-in GPS that allows you to easily track your distance. 

With YouTube Music controls (9) (10) on Charge 6, you can be the DJ of your workouts as you start, stop and skip over 100 million songs right from your wrist. When you want to change things up, YouTube Music Premium can also recommend workout mixes based on your exercise.

Alt text: Woman in a wheelchair plays pickleball while wearing Charge 6 with a sport band.

Indigenous people are the first storytellers of any land - from Waitangi to Rakiura Stewart Island. It’s important that their stories are told to nurture communities and tell histories. This is critical too in our news ecosystem. Which is why Te Rito Journalism Project was set up to help address today’s shortage of Māori and Pasifika journalists and cultural awareness in newsrooms.

For the second year, the Google News Initiative has supported Te Rito with a digital skills training camp for its cadets, to bring the rich history of indigenous storytelling into the smartphones, laptops and desktops of news audiences across Aotearoa and beyond.

In August last year, we hosted the first Te Rito Journalism Training Camp which saw 23 cadets representing multiple ethnicities, languages, and the rainbow and disability communities from all over the motu participate in training focused on digital skilling and fundamental principles of digital tools and reporting. 

This year, for the first time Te Rito included young Indigenous journalists from Australia, supporting critical First Nation storytelling.

Te Rito was established by New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME), Whakaata Māori, Warner Bros. Discovery ANZ and the Pacific Media Network, with support from NZ On Air's Public Interest Journalism Fund.

News is dependent on the people that tell the stories. The journalism and broadcast industry will have much to gain from voices across diverse backgrounds that are representative of all communities in Aotearoa and Australia.

Come October 2023, New Zealanders will take to the polls to vote in the General Election to decide who we want to represent us and our communities in Parliament. 

To support the democratic process, Google is bringing more openness to election advertising online, and helping connect people to useful and relevant election-related information. Here is how we will be providing support:

Helping voters find the information they need

In the build-up to elections, people need helpful and authoritative information to help them navigate the electoral process. For the New Zealand election in 2023, we will make electoral information from the Election Commission and other authoritative sources - such as how to vote and where to vote - easily discoverable on Search and YouTube.

Google News Lab will continue to publish the latest Search Trends related to the Election, across politicians, policies and parties, to support newsrooms with their coverage of the election period. In addition to the bespoke microsite, News Lab will be issuing weekly Trends Alerts from the beginning of September to highlight the areas that Kiwis are interested in, which anyone can sign up for here. 

Helping people better understand the election advertising they see

Google’s goal has always been to support election integrity by providing transparency into the political advertising spend on our platforms. For the second time during our local General Election a publicly accessible Transparency Report is live, showing election ads run by verified advertisers. Our goal is to make this information as accessible and useful as possible to citizens, practitioners, and researchers. We're working with political parties to help them understand digital best practices and will be sharing Google's ads policies with parties and candidates.

On YouTube, we have expanded information panels giving topical context in New Zealand and across the region. Now, when Kiwis search videos on certain topics prone to misinformation, they’ll see an information panel at the top of their search results or under a video they’re watching which includes links to additional info and context from authoritative third-party sources.

Helping to build media literacy with the Google News Initiative 

We help voters find reliable, useful election-related information online and we also work hard to prevent election interference by being on the front foot and educating stakeholders on how to spot disinformation through media literacy programmes.

As part of our ongoing commitment to the New Zealand media industry we partnered with CrossCheck at RMIT FactLab to launch RMIT Fact Lab Workshops. These immersive and interactive trainings help newsrooms and community media learn skills to analyse online information during the Election period.

In addition, we have partnered with Squiz Kids, a daily news podcast for school children, designed to teach students how to recognize online fact from fiction through a plug-and-play teaching resource. 

Our mission is to make the world’s information accessible and useful, and during this election period, we want to surface the facts and help audiences get more context on information they find online. We will continue to invest in initiatives that build further on our commitment towards election transparency, and we are grateful for our partners, and the work we do together in this space. 

Today, I’m proud to launch Google’s 2022 Economic Impact Report. 

The report by Access Partnership investigates how digital technologies can help New Zealand tackle two critical national challenges: the growing digital skills gap and the increasing risk of natural disasters. By addressing these we can build our resilience and gain up to $18 billion in 2030*.

The report also looks at the ways Google is supporting New Zealand households and businesses into the digital future — to the tune of $16.5 billion worth of economic benefits in 2022.

The research by Access Partnership looked at two critical challenges: the digital skills shortages in our labour market, and the risk of natural disasters exacerbated by climate change. 

It found that:

• Better using digital technologies to solve critical challenges can help New Zealand gain up to $18.2 billion in 2030. This includes:

1. Improving New Zealand’s digital competitiveness could unlock $8.4 billion of additional  Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2030 through improved labour productivity. For example:

• By streamlining the job search process through online job portals, upskilling workers through online digital skills training, and applying artificial intelligence (AI) on resume optimisation or insights on industry hiring and salary trends.

2. Helping New Zealand manage the impacts of natural disasters could eliminate $9.8 billion in property damage in 2030. This includes:

• Three key technologies include remote sensing, geospatial data analytics and satellite communication which can ensure better disaster preparedness and quicker response efforts.

Google is helping New Zealand’s resilience through community engagement, funding and partnerships. To provide digital skills and knowledge to New Zealand’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), Google has played an active role in the MBIE’s ‘Digital Boost Alliance,’ including the development of a free tool Checkable, which is built on Google Cloud, and helps SMEs understand and improve their digital presence. 

Google’s economic impact in New Zealand

Google has been on the ground in New Zealand for over 15 years and has a team in both Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and Pōneke Wellington across Cloud, Engineering, Education and Client Partnerships. 

Our digital tools like Google Ads and YouTube help support an additional 39,600 local jobs in 2022. For example, app developers use Google Play to generate revenue that supports a wide range of jobs including engineers, graphic designers and marketers. And over one in four New Zealand YouTube users say they use the platform to learn advanced digital skills, like software programming, AI and website development.

Through products and services including Google Search, Ads, AdSense, Play, YouTube, and Cloud, New Zealand businesses gained $10.9 billion worth of economic value in 2022. Of this value, over half (52%) went to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) - a total $5.7 billion. These products help businesses expand and grow revenue in domestic and international markets, and work more efficiently while strengthening resilience against economic shocks. In addition, Kiwi employees using Google Workspace each gain 18 days of time savings annually. This includes time saved by accessing, storing and sharing online documents for work, and from reduced meetings and more efficient collaborations. 

This includes the University of Canterbury which was struggling to attract international students when borders reopened post-pandemic. The Faculty of Science adopted a test and learn approach, and rolled out a full-funnel digital ads strategy across 40 countries, in the hope of generating enquiries, and ultimately applications, from international students. The campaign resulted in 58,000 new enquiries — a 10x return on export investment from their spend on Google Ads.

Many New Zealand businesses choose to partner with Google Cloud to support their digital transformation journey, providing them with an easy-to-use and always-on service that keeps them running smoothly and maximises efficiency and productivity. We recently announced plans to bring a Google Cloud region to Aotearoa, with an AccessPartnership study** finding:

• $4.2 billion in productivity benefits will be generated via the new Google Cloud region between 2025 and 2030; 

• 9,700 equivalent full-time jobs like cloud engineers and data scientists will be created through the Google Cloud region in 2030 alone;  and

• 78% improvement in energy efficiency*** could be achieved through the migration of on-premise data centres to cloud, enabling organisations to reduce energy consumption and associated emissions.

The Google Cloud region’s reliable, low-latency connectivity, as well as the highest security and compliance standards will help advance areas like New Zealand’s healthcare systems and scientific research through scalable, on-demand access to solutions.

Helping Kiwis save time and access important information

Many of our helpful products have become an important part of the everyday lives of millions of Kiwis. Through the use of Google's products, which include Google Search, Maps, Play, YouTube, Drive, Photos, Slides, Docs, and Sheets, in 2022, New Zealand households enjoy $5.6 billion worth of economic benefits — which represents the average New Zealand Internet user receiving $1,167 of value annually as a result of easier access to information, increased productivity and a variety of entertainment and enrichment benefits.

Digital technologies have played a vital role in supporting New Zealand’s resilience through the environment, economic shocks and other emerging challenges. This report shows us they will be critical to helping us better predict and respond to future challenges — and in achieving our potential. Google is committed to working alongside people, businesses and community to create a strong and inclusive digital future for all New Zealanders.

In the 60-minute online training, participants debate ideas and simulate real life situations journalists may face, such as delving into case studies to understand some of the ethical boundaries on social media reporting. Participants found one of the biggest challenges for journalists was the 'tipping point' - when to report on information while considering whether or not amplification will do further harm.

We know that it’s better to address misconceptions before they spread, which is why the simulation brought to life examples of how to prebunk, as opposed to just debunk, information. 

Shanti Mathias, staff writer at The Spinoff shared her reflections post-training: ”I really appreciated the simulation and felt that it was quite a well researched scenario on the whole...overall the reminder to be thoughtful about information that I encounter as a journalist was a really valuable one.”

AUT Journalism Associate Professor Helen Sissons said the experience was a fantastic training tool, and students were "all smiles" and still talking about the simulation in classes. She also mentioned that the students enjoyed the hands-on practical and interactive nature of the exercises.

In the coming months, more simulation and training sessions will be conducted with top tier national and regional mastheads. There will also be additional training scenarios with te reo Māori experts and Chinese speakers to deliver simulations relevant to language groups. 

To further advance New Zealanders ability to identify misinformation, the Google News Initiative supports a range of other projects including Newshounds by Squiz Kids, a media literacy teaching resource which teaches children what information sources they should (and shouldn’t) trust, and Policy who run a tool for journalists that provides a database for candidates’ key election policies, supporting their ability to track misinformation. 

We look forward to continuing to work with news partners to ensure communities have access to quality information in an effort to ensure Kiwis continue to find quality information and journalism in critical moments that matter.

Since early 2023, New Zealanders have faced extreme weather events unlike anything we’ve seen before. Historic flooding and cyclones have ripped through communities, and while natural disasters are common here - causing an average of NZ$790 million in damages each year - they’re unfortunately increasing in frequency and intensity due to climate change, threatening people’s safety and livelihood. Globally, it’s estimated that flooding affects over 250 million people each year.

As part of our work to use AI to address the climate crisis, we’re expanding our flood forecasting capabilities to 80 countries, including here in New Zealand. With the addition of 60 new countries across Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and South and Central America, our platform Flood Hub now includes some of the regions with the highest percentages of population exposed to flood risk and experiencing more extreme weather, covering 460 million people globally. 

Governments, aid organisations, and individuals can use Flood Hub to take timely action and prepare for floods, seeing locally relevant flood data and flood forecasts up to 7 days in advance — an increase from last year, when information was only available 48 hours in advance.  

Flood Hub’s AI is based on diverse, publicly-available data sources, such as weather forecasts and satellite imagery. The technology then combines two models: the Hydrologic Model, which forecasts the amount of water flowing in a river, and the Inundation Model, which predicts what areas are going to be affected and how deep the water will be.

We’re working to expand flood forecasting alerts in Search and Maps to make this information available to people when they need it the most.

Using AI to help people prepare for flooding

In 2018, we kicked-off flood forecasting in India and expanded to Bangladesh to help combat the catastrophic damage from yearly floods. Due to advances in our global AI and machine learning forecasting models, in 2022 we further rolled out our technology to 18 more countries, paving the way for today’s global expansion.

Flood Hub is part of our Crisis Response work to provide people access to trusted information and resources in critical moments. For over a decade, we have been partnering with front line and emergency workers to develop technology and programs that help keep people safe, informed and out of harm’s way. 

In addition, to support communities that have been impacted by the flooding and cyclones in New Zealand this year, through our Google.org giving campaign, which combines Google employee donations with a Google.org grant, we raised over NZ$200k total, for The Center for Disaster Philanthropy to support on the ground recovery.

As we continue improving our AI-based global models for flood forecasting, we will keep supporting at-risk communities with technology to mitigate the effects of climate change.