LG G6 Plus comes to Canada

LG is making a larger variant of its LG G6, the LG G6 Plus, available in Canada.The LG G6 Plus offers all of the features of the flagship, like the 5.7" FullVision display, with the added bonus of additional storage and premium sound.    

“We’re excited to offer the LG G6 Plus to Canadians through an exclusive partnership with Videotron,” said Puneet Jain, Head of Marketing at LG Electronics Canada Inc. “Videotron has been a fantastic carrier partner over the years and was actually the first to offer the premium V Series device to Canadians. The LG G6 Plus continues this tradition of firsts.” 

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OnePlus 3/3T and 5/5T won’t support Project Treble

We know that Android 8.1 Oreo is coming to both the OnePlus 5/5T devices as well as the OnePlus 3/3T. The latter is especially welcome news. There is no specific time table for the updates yet. But we find out more information about it. One of the newest pieces of information we got is that the company will not support Project Treble, a feature that aims to bring faster updates to Android devices. This does this by separating the operating system code from the vendor code, letting vendors push key OS updates to the phones without the need to re-optimize their own codes. OnePlus Staff Member Adam Krisko, who was doing an AMA on the OnePlus Forums, broke the news but he didn’t say why they didn’t intend to support Treble for these devices.

Source: Android Authority

Android smartphones still tracking user location even if location services are off

An investigation by online news service Quartz reveals that Android smartphones continue to collect and send data to Google even if these settings are voluntarily turned off by users. Quartz says Google is collecting the addresses of nearby mobile phone masts and sending them back to Google. The details were collected even when location services were turned off on the phones, no apps had been installed and there was no SIM card in the phone

A Google spokesperson told Quartz that the cell tower addresses were included in information sent to the system Google uses to manage push notifications and messages on Android phones since early 2017. While it is understandable that Google and its apps require location data for improved accuracy, it is alarming that user settings are so blatantly disregarded by the core OS. Granted, there's no imminent danger of getting hacked or exploited simply by sharing location data, the lack of transparency and the cavalier attitude Google has taken with user location data raises a red flag for other types of user data the company might be collecting. In response, Google is saying that it isn't storing this data and it will turn off the collection feature so it works as originally advertised.

Source: Quartz

Gboard adds support for 40 more languages and sticker packs

Google’s keyboard app Gboard gets one useful update for those who wanted access to more languages on it. For one it adds support for 40 more languages, including those that don’t have a writing system based on Latin script. In the changelog, Japanese had been specifically singled out, meaning there must be a big demand for it. But the app won’t for users of Google’s Japanese keyboard to switch. Instead, it’s just one of the many options that need to be manually added and configured to use.

As for the other new feature, it’s actually been around for users of Allo. But now the four sticker packs are readily available for all Gboard users, regardless if you have Allo or not. The update is rolling out now so you may see it soon on your device.

Source: 9to5Google