Galaxy Buds+ spec sheet and renders confirm what’s new for Samsung’s wireless earbuds

Late last year in December, we first got word of the upcoming Galaxy Buds+. At the time, we didn’t know anything about the earbuds other than its name. Then, late last month, leaked renders of the earbuds surfaced online giving us our first look at Samsung’s updated Galaxy Buds+. The renders confirmed no design changes for the wireless earbuds, however, they did confirm the three color variants. Now, just a week ahead of the Samsung Unpacked launch event, we have received more information about the upcoming earbuds.

Renowned leakster @evleaks has shared a detailed spec sheet for the Galaxy Buds+ which not only highlights all of its specifications but also reveals the price. As per the spec sheet, the Buds+ will be slightly heavier than the non-plus variant due to the slightly larger 85mAh battery in the buds and 270mAh battery in the case. Thanks to the larger battery, the Galaxy Buds+ will offer 11 hours of continuous use on a single charge, with an additional 22 hours offered by the charging case. The buds will also include fast charge support, boasting of 60 minutes of playtime with just 3 minutes of charging.

Much like the older Galaxy Buds, the Buds+ will feature Bluetooth 5.0, but this time around Samsung has included support for multi-device connections. The updated buds also feature a 2-way dynamic speaker system, one additional microphone, IPX2 rating, and support for iOS devices. Sadly though, the spec sheet doesn’t mention support for active noise cancellation. The Galaxy Buds+ will allegedly be available in four color variants — black, white, blue, and red — and it will be priced at $149.

The aforementioned information was also confirmed in a recent report from WinFuture, which also included some new renders of the Galaxy Buds+. The report also reveals that Samsung’s companion app for the Galaxy Buds+ is already available on the Apple App Store, thereby confirming iOS compatibility.

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Source: Twitter, WinFuture

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Xiaomi releases the kernel sources for the Redmi K30 4G/POCO X2

After a year and half long waiting period, POCO finally expanded its portfolio with the launch of POCO X2 in India. While not a direct successor to the POCO F1, the POCO X2 is filled with all the right ingredients necessary to make its own name. With a smooth 120Hz display, a bigger battery, improved cameras, and even cheaper starting price, the device should face no issue convincing potential buyers. However, it’s not just the low price point that makes POCO so popular among enthusiasts. The part of the appeal also comes from the company’s dev-friendly nature and willingness to support the modding community.

POCO X2/Redmi K30 4G XDA Forums

Speaking at the POCO X2 launch event yesterday, C. Manmohan, POCO General Manager, reiterated their support for the community and promised that the company will provide the kernel sources for the device from Day 1. As promised, the kernel sources and device tree for the POCO X2/Redmi K30 are now live on the company’s GitHub. It should be noted that the POCO X2 is just a rebranded version of the Redmi K30 4G and hence the same code is applicable for both devices. POCO is in the process of carving its own identity which is distinct from Xiaomi, but for now, the kernel source release comes from Xiaomi’s official GitHub repository. You can review the source code by visiting the link below.

POCO X2/Redmi K30 4G Kernel Sources

The release of the kernel code will greatly aid the development efforts and we can look forward to developers booting TWRP and bringing early port of AOSP-based ROMs in the following weeks. The POCO F1 remains one of the most popular devices on our forums and with the release of kernel sources, the POCO X2 has set itself on the same path. The device will go on sale in India starting February 11th from Flipkart for a starting price of ₹15,999 ($225).

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ZTE and LG cancel MWC 2020 events citing coronavirus concerns

The death toll from the ongoing coronavirus outbreak in China has continued to climb over the last few weeks. New cases of infection have risen by double-digit percentages and there are no signs of a slowdown. On top of that, the outbreak is wreaking havoc on the global supply chain, with several companies shutting shop in China and pulling out their employees from the region. Effects of the supply shortage have been felt far and wide. Early this week, ASUS announced that its flagship product — the ROG Phone II — will be out of stock due to the coronavirus situation. Now, it seems like the outbreak might also hamper the upcoming MWC 2020 trade show.

GSM Alliance’s annual MWC trade show is scheduled for later this month. At the event, a number of smartphone manufacturers are expected to showcase their product lineup for 2020. However, due to the coronavirus outbreak, both LG and ZTE have now announced that they won’t be attending the event this year. In a statement regarding the matter, LG withdrew its participation from the event to ensure the safety of its employees and the general public. Instead, the company plans to hold separate events in the near future to showcase its 2020 mobile products. The company was expected to announce the LG V60 ThinQ and LG G9 ThinQ at this year’s MWC, which will most likely be pushed back due to the current situation.

Chinese OEM ZTE had previously confirmed attendance at MWC 2020 with a 5G-focused event. The company was also expected to launch the Axon 10s Pro 5G at the event, however, it has also pulled out citing the coronavirus situation. The company’s PR reached out to us and confirmed their cancellation due to the same reason. Until the coronavirus situation is under control, we believe more OEMs might pull out of the trade show this year to protect their employees. It’s also worth noting that MWC 2020 has recently announced a ‘handshake ban’ at the event, along with other measures, to help mitigate the spread of the virus.

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Samsung teases the Galaxy M31 with a 64MP camera

After years of cheapening out its budget phones with sub-standard specifications and an absence of basic sensors, Samsung finally woke up in 2019. The company upgraded the Galaxy A series with better specifications to make them more competitive in the upper mid-range segments of the smartphone market. More importantly, it took the fight to Xiaomi and Realme by releasing the online-only Galaxy M series in the lower mid-range segment. The Galaxy M30, Galaxy M20, and Galaxy M10 were launched in early 2019. While the phones couldn’t beat Xiaomi and Realme’s competitors in every respect, they were at least in the same league. Samsung became respectable in the lower mid-range segment after a long time. In September, the company upgraded the Galaxy M30 by launching the Galaxy M30s (review), its highlight features being its massive 6,000mAh battery and a 48MP primary camera. Despite the improvement in specifications, Samsung’s market share has continued to decrease in India, allowing Vivo to sneak past into second position in the Indian smartphone market. Something more needs to be done.

Saw this image online. Seems like Samsung is coming up with something to do with a 64MP #MegaMonster. The details & when is still a mystery. Let's see what the successor to the M30s has to offer. @SamsungIndia can you throw some light. pic.twitter.com/La7YnDnW9K

— Ranjit (@geekyranjit) February 4, 2020

To that end, Samsung has kept launching new phones in the mid-range market. The company launched the Galaxy A51 earlier this month, a phone that was a mild refresh of its predecessor, the Galaxy A50s (review). Now, two prominent Indian YouTubers, GeekyRanjit and Technical Guruji respectively, have released exclusive teasers of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy M31, which will be the successor of the Galaxy M30s. The teaser reveals the phone’s name and proclaims a 64MP camera with the tagline “Mega Monster”. The “mega monster” tagline suggests that it will probably have the same 6,000mAh battery capacity as its predecessor—beating all of its competitors in this respect. No other details were provided, but we can expect Samsung to announce the phone’s launch date soon. The 64MP primary camera is expected to use Samsung’s own 64MP ISOCELL GW1 sensor.

The upcoming Galaxy M31 recently received Bluetooth SIG and Wi-Fi certifications, which revealed that it would come out of the box with Android 10, feature dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity. Earlier unverified rumors suggested that it could have a quad camera setup consisting of a 64MP primary camera, an ultra-wide-angle camera, a depth sensor, and a macro camera—imitating the camera setups of the Redmi Note 8 Pro (review), Realme XT (review) and the Realme X2 (review). It was also said to be powered by the same Exynos 9611 SoC that powered both its predecessor and the Galaxy A50s/Galaxy A51. It could be paired with up to 6GB RAM and up to 128GB of expandable storage. It should be noted these details haven’t been confirmed.

The Galaxy M30s recently received a price cut in India, with the 4GB RAM/64GB storage variant now available at ₹12,999, down from its launch price of ₹13,999. The 6GB RAM/128GB storage variant received a ₹2,000 price cut from ₹16,999 to ₹14,999. These prices are now applicable across retailers. This is another indication that Samsung is gearing up to launch the Galaxy M31 soon.

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Via: 91mobiles

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NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW cloud gaming service is now open to all

Game streaming services have become increasingly popular in the last year. Google Stadia and Microsoft’s xCloud are a few examples, but NVIDIA has one of the oldest services in GeForce NOW. Last August, NVIDIA announced the service would be coming to Android, and in October they started a closed beta. Starting today, anyone can sign up.

For those unfamiliar with the GeForce NOW service, it’s a little different from Stadia. You don’t have to re-purchase any of the games you already own. You can stream games that are already in your Steam account (as long as NVIDIA has added support for the game). The service works on Windows, macOS, SHIELD TV, and Android smartphones. It will also be coming to Chromebooks sometime this year.

Starting today, GeForce NOW is no longer in closed beta. Users can sign up and choose from two tiers: Free and Founders. The free tier is limited to 1-hour gaming sessions and may be subject to a waitlist if there are too many people trying to play. The Founders tier gets priority access, up to 6 hours of playtime, and gaming with RTX. If you sign up now, you get the first 3 months for free, and it’s $4.99 per month for the rest of 2020.

NVIDIA expects to support 4-5 RTX titles at launch. Gameplay can be up to 1080p60 depending on the connection. All existing beta users will be automatically migrated to the Founders tier for free. 30 countries across North America and Europe are currently supported. You can head over to the GeForce NOW website to sign up!

NVIDIA GeForce NOW (Free, Google Play) →

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Google Photos incorrectly exported private videos to other users

Google Photos is one of Google’s most popular services. It was originally launched as Google+ Photos and bundled with Google+. While Google+ died in 2018, Google Photos was separated from the social network in 2015 and it has thrived ever since. The service lets users upload and store high-resolution photos to the cloud with 15GB free storage provided as a base. These photos can then be accessed through any device. Image backup to the cloud, therefore, has become an ubiquitous concept. It still has its drawbacks, however. One of these is the existence of technical bugs that leads to data leaks. Google has now revealed that a technical bug of this kind affected Photos users in November, where a user’s private videos were incorrectly exported to random users’ archives.

Whoa, what? @googlephotos? pic.twitter.com/2cZsABz1xb

— Jon Oberheide (@jonoberheide) February 4, 2020

The source of the bug was in Google Takeout, a feature that lets users download their data from Google apps either for locally backing it up or for using it with another service. Google has started sending emails to Takeout users about the “technical issue” that took place from November 21-25, 2019. During that time frame, users who requested backups from Google Photos could have had their videos on the service “incorrectly exported to unrelated users’ archives”. This was specific to videos, not photos. These videos might be visible to random users that were also downloading their data through Google Takeout. Select users could have had “one or more videos in [their] Google Photos account” affected by this issue. A secondary issue is that the users’ archives downloaded from Takeout were incomplete and missing some of their videos, while containing videos from unrelated strangers.

Google is now recommending users to delete their previous exports and request a new one. It told 9to5Google that less than 0.01% of Photos users attempting Takeouts were affected. No other product is said to be affected. Google has now identified and resolved this issue, and apologized to users in the email it sent. It has also conducted “an in-depth analysis to help prevent this from ever happening again”.

This technical issue was definitely not a nice one, as it infringed users’ privacy and highlighted the drawbacks of uploading user data to the cloud. Google’s responsibility was to own up to the issue, and it can be argued that by making an admission two months after the technical issue, the company hasn’t lived up to its ideals. Such an incident, however, is sadly not an exception.

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Source: Jon Oberheide | Via: 9to5Google

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Developers have earned over $80 billion in total from the Google Play Store

Hiroshi Lockheimer, SVP at Google, has confirmed on Twitter that to date, developers have earned over $80 billion in total from the Google Play Store globally, excluding the Chinese market (where Google services are not available). This was announced soon after Alphabet’s Q4 earnings call. The disclosure of the cumulative figure motivates software developers to publish their apps on the Play Store, which is the largest app market in the world.

Today, @sundarpichai shared that developers around the world (excl. China) have earned more than $80 billion to date on @GooglePlay. Our platform can’t succeed without the help of our developer ecosystem, so a huge thank you for all you do!

— Hiroshi Lockheimer (@lockheimer) February 4, 2020

On one hand, the $80 billion amount is definitely an impressive one. However, it pales in comparison to Apple’s more lucrative App Store. In January 2019, Apple confirmed that developers had earned $120 billion from the App Store since 2008. The Play Store was also launched in 2008, although it was then known as the Android Market. Considering that Android has an overwhelming market share advantage globally over iOS, the perception of the $80 billion figure can be viewed in a different light. The disparity in the amount can be easily explained, however. There are more free apps on the Play Store. While app downloads on the Play Store are reportedly higher than the App Store, the higher price tags of Apple devices means that users are more likely to buy paid applications in contrast to users from the developing world, who largely rely on free apps monetized by ads. The demographics of Android and iOS users are different, which has a direct correlation with the earnings of developers on the respective app platforms.

Google hasn’t disclosed the details of the $80 billion amount, so we don’t precisely know which regions are the ones where developers earn the most money from. The actual sales figure of applications on the Play Store will be higher, as Google takes a 30% cut of all developer sales. Android continues to be the most popular operating system globally, but equally, smartphone sales are declining in Western markets because of maturity and saturation. The opportunities for developers are in emerging markets, which have rapidly moved to a mobile-first era. Therefore, it would be fair to expect the $80 billion amount to rise over the next few years.

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