Tokyo, Sep 16 (IANS): Google News Showcase, a $1 billion news licensing programme to support publishers by surfacing card-based content across its platforms is now coming to Japan.

The effort has signed nearly 1,000, up from 800 in July, deals with news publications in India, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, the UK, Argentina, Australia, Czechia, Italy, Canada, Austria and Colombia.

The tech giant said that over 90 per cent of the publications "provide local or community news".

In Japan, Google has signed partnerships with over 40 publishers that include national, regional and local news organisations.

News Showcase cards are meant to be glanceable and will start appearing in Google Discover on mobile, as well as Google News for the web, Android and iOS.

In the former feed, users will get them from publications they already follow, while users can find the panels in the "For You" and "Newsstand" tabs of News.

These licensing agreements also see Google to pay publishers to unlock certain paywalled content to provide a "wide range of news content" for free and encourage paid subscriptions.