End of Google+ is close: No new profiles starting next week, full schedule here

If you were thinking about joining the hot new social media platform Google+ next week, we have some bad news for you: starting February 4, this coming Monday, the creation of new consumer-level Google+ profiles won’t be possible.

Google revealed the profile creation termination date in a new support article. The post also describes other notable dates coming up for the previously announced planned demise of the beleaguered consumer version of the social network.

Check out the notable dates below:

  • February 4, 2019 — You will no longer be able to create new Google+ profiles, pages, communities, or events.
  • February 4 to March 7, 2019 — The Google+ feature for website comments will be removed by Blogger on February 4 and other sites by March 7.
  • Mid-February or early March 2019 — Google+ sign-in buttons will stop working, but in some cases will be replaced by a Google sign-in button.
  • Early March 2019 — Google+ Community owners and moderators who are downloading data from their Community will gain additional access to data such as author, body, and photos for every community post in a public community.
  • April 2, 2019 — All Google+ comments on all sites will be deleted. Additionally, all Google+ accounts and pages will be shut down and Google will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts. Photos and videos from Google+ in users’ Album Archive and Google+ pages will also be deleted. Photos and videos backed up in Google Photos will not be deleted.
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Google is providing plenty of ways for you to prepare for the shutdown of Google+. You can use the company’s Takeout program to back up some of your data, but Google is also providing a Google+ backup tool that will do a more thorough job. The Google+ Exporter app will export your data and keep everything nicely organized. It’s free for the most recent 3,000 posts in your Google+ profile.

It should be noted that Google+ for G Suite users isn’t going anywhere. In fact, the platform received a promise of new 2019 updates in October 2018.

While the end of Google+ is no doubt sad, especially for the small subset of users who still use it on a day-to-day basis, there’s no way around it, now: Google+ is coming to a close. It’s time to start backing up your data and moving on.

NEXT: Here lies Google+: Why it never scored (a lasting audience)

Source: Android Zone

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Samsung might launch its own blockchain wallet alongside the Galaxy S10

The Samsung logo.

Pictures posted by concept designer Ben Geskin on Twitter show off Samsung’s rumored cryptocurrency service, along with a clear image of the Galaxy S10.

The Samsung Blockchain KeyStore looks to be a blockchain wallet, which you’ll be able to either import an existing wallet or create a new wallet. According to the images, the Blockchain KeyStore only lists Ethereum as a supported cryptocurrency.


That said, a previous report from SamMobile claims that Samsung’s blockchain wallet will also support Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum-derived token ERC20 at launch.

The report also claims that Samsung won’t have access to any of the data in the Blockchain KeyStore app, which might be a cold wallet. The main way to recover your data is with the 12 to 24-word recovery phrase. The app also features a secondary layer of authentication that includes PIN and fingerprint.

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The images also give us the clearest visuals of the regular Galaxy S10. The phone in the images is unlikely to be the Galaxy S10 Plus, since that device will reportedly feature two front-facing cameras.

According to rumors, the Galaxy S10 features a 6.1-inch curved OLED display, an in-display fingerprint sensor, the Exynos 9820 processor (global), the Snapdragon 855 for North America, and either 128GB or 512GB of internal storage. The phone could sell for at least 799 euros (~$1,009) when it launches.

Samsung will have much to say about the Galaxy S10 on February 20, when the company will hold an Unpacked event in San Francisco.

Source: Android Zone

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Where are the true wireless earbuds that use Qualcomm’s TrueWireless Stereo Plus?

RHA TrueConnect: The left earbud being worn by a woman, it protrudes a bit from the ear with the stem angled downward.

Plenty of neat new products have been unveiled at CES this year, kickstarting a number of new trends for 2019. One unfortunate absentee from the list are Bluetooth earbuds sporting Qualcomm’s TrueWireless Stereo Plus technology. We did spot the Mavin Air-X brandishing support, but that was essentially it.

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TrueWireless Stereo Plus is a big deal for wireless earbuds and it’s a crime that it’s not being more widely adopted. In a nutshell, it improves battery life between recharge times by connecting both buds to the phone, therefore preventing the master bud from discharging faster than the other. The more basic TrueWireless version also supports master earbud swapping to help save on battery life in a similar fashion. Connection quality also improves as transmission doesn’t have to pass around your skull and latency is lower due to the absence of retransmission. Finally, pairing is simpler as both earbuds connect as a stereo pair rather than individually.

The technology was first announced shortly after Qualcomm’s QCC5100 chip back in early 2018. The company also announced the lower cost QCC3026 alternative in June, which supports a subset of the bigger chip’s features. There has been plenty of time for manufacturers to take Qualcomm’s reference designs and get them into consumers’ hands.

Audio diagram of Qualcomm true wireless technology.

Qualcomm Qualcomm TrueWireless Stereo Plus facilitates a simultaneous connection from a smartphone and left and right earbuds. In turn, this mitigates latency and connectivity issues.

Why isn’t this idea taking off?

Part of the problem is that this isn’t necessarily an easy feature to explain to customers, or even manufacturers if you’re in Qualcomm’s position. There’s no obvious way to tell the difference between a TrueWireless and Stereo Plus pair just by looking at them. Branding helps a little, although Apple’s W1 chip probably grabs some attention simply because of the Apple branding, few audio enthusiasts care about processors. Ultimately, most consumers are looking at metrics like battery life and sound quality, rather than harder to quantify metrics like connection quality, ease of pairing, and what chip happens to be onboard.

Secondly, TrueWireless Stereo Plus currently only works with Snapdragon 845 and upcoming 855 powered smartphones. There are a lot of compatible phones in circulation now, but many more consumers own mid-range phones that include other Snapdragon chips. In Western markets, a huge number of wireless audio consumers are playing back content from iPhones too, which don’t support any of Qualcomm audio technologies including aptX. Once again, audio fragmentation is hurting some of the better innovations to have appeared in the Bluetooth space.

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Ultimately, the technology isn’t widely supported enough to make it a must-have feature for Bluetooth earbud developers, which is a shame. Qualcomm could help by bringing TrueWireless Stereo Plus support to more cost-effective SoCs this year, such as its Snapdragon 600 series.

With development and component costs falling and USB Type-C headphones appeared to go nowhere, we may yet see more TrueWireless Stereo Plus headsets appear later in the year. Fingers crossed.

Next: Smartwatch roundup: The best wearables we could find at CES 2019

Source: Android Zone

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