Lenovo Acquires Google's Motorola Unit For $2.9 Billion

Google announced on Wednesday that it has sold its Motorola smartphone business to PC manufacturer Lenovo for $2.9 billion.

Google closed its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola in 2012. Taking into account Google's $2.4 billion sale of the Motorola Home division to Arris in December of that year, that's still a $7.2 billion difference.

The loss represents a rare black mark on Google's otherwise impressive history of high-profile acquisitions, which includes YouTube, AdSense and Android. Motorola currently makes the Moto X and Moto G smartphones as well as the Droid Ultra on Verizon Wireless.

The buy will likely strengthen Lenovo's position in the smartphone market and pick up its presence especially in North America and Latin America.

Google will retain majority ownership of Motorola's Mobility patent portfolio one of the key reasons for the initial acquisition but Lenovo will receive a license to this and gain about 2,000 patent assets. Lenovo will not be getting its advanced research unit, which recently launched an open hardware platform for building modular smartphones.

“Lenovo has the expertise and track record to scale Motorola Mobility into a major player within the Android ecosystem," Google CEO Larry Page said in a press release. "This move will enable Google to devote our energy to driving innovation across the Android ecosystem, for the benefit of smartphone users everywhere."

Page further detailed in an official Google blog post it acquired the division in 2012 to fuel the Android ecosystem by creating a stronger patent portfolio for Google.

"But the smartphone market is super competitive, and to thrive it helps to be all-in when it comes to making mobile devices," he added. "It’s why we believe that Motorola will be better served by Lenovo which has a rapidly growing smartphone business and is the largest and fastest growing PC manufacturer in the world."

Page warned, however, that the move doesn't signal a larger shift away from hardware efforts.

"The dynamics and maturity of the wearable and home markets, for example, are very different from that of the mobile industry," he said. "We’re excited by the opportunities to build amazing new products for users within these emerging ecosystems."

Source: Lenovo

Verizon Schedules July 23rd Event

Verizon just started sending out invites to the press for an event taking place later this month in New York City via TheVerge. While the carrier isn't specifically mentioning what we’ll be seeing at the event, it did say to expect the next generation of its most popular family of devices, which leads us to believe it will likely be an announcement for new Droid devices.

Motopocalypse Bootloader Unlock Tool Now Available For Motorola Devices

Yesterday, we were shocked to learn that Dan Rosenberg, a developer and security researcher, has found an exploit that would allow users to unlock the bootloaders of several Motorola phones. The phones confirmed to be supported were the Motorola Atrix HD, Motorola DROID RAZR HD and MAXX HD, and the Motorola DROID RAZR M. That list hasn’t changed overnight, unfortunately. Users are urged not to try this method if they own any other phone as doing so could damage their phone irreparably.

This .zip file is what you’re looking for, and here’s what you’ll need to do with it:

1. Extract the entire contents of the zip file.
2. If you are using Windows, ensure you have installed the latest Motorola USB drivers available for your phone.
3. Ensure your device has been rooted and you have a working installation of “su”.
4. Ensure USB Debugging mode is enabled on your device.
5. If you are using Windows, navigate to the extracted directory and execute “run.bat”. If you are using Linux or OS X, navigate to the extracted directory in a terminal and execute “./run.sh”.

Dan Rosenberg also posted full insight into his research and the process which allowed him to discover the exploit over at Azimuth Security. It’s a long technical read, but if you’re up for it and interested in seeing how the tightest bootloader in the game was overtaken by the brains of this developer be sure to head over there.

Remember that anything you do to your device as a result of this modification or any other modification is your own responsibility. No one’s going to be obligated to buy you a new device if you happen to find it transformed into a decepticon. If you understand that warning and the possible repercussions of the operation then be sure to give it a try and see if you can finally free the chains your device has been shackled to for so long.


Source: Vulnfactory

How Siri Almost Became An Android Exclusive For Verizon

Details on the the history of Siri, including Steve Jobs' move to contact the company just three weeks after the independent app's launch, have surfaced over the last several years, but The Huffington Post has now published an extensive history of the technology and company that reveals a few other interesting details. 

The report outlines how Siri grew out of a Department of Defense project to integrate with 42 different web services to perform its virtual assistant services, many of which were discontinued when Apple scaled back the platform for inclusion in iOS. Apple has been relatively slow to build Siri's feature set back up, but has been making progress on the effort. 

Perhaps most interestingly, the report reveals that Siri was very nearly an Android exclusive for Verizon, but the deal was obviously broken when Steve Jobs and Apple moved quickly to acquire Siri.

In the fall of 2009, several months before Apple approached Siri, Verizon had signed a deal with the startup to make Siri a default app on all Android phones set to launch in the new year. When Apple swooped in to buy Siri, it insisted on making the assistant exclusive to Apple devices, and nixed the Verizon deal. In the process, it narrowly avoided seeing Siri become a selling point for smartphones powered by its biggest rival, Google. (Somewhere in the vaults of the wireless giant, there are unreleased commercials touting Siri as an Android add-on.)
The report goes on to discuss some of the challenges faced by Siri at Apple, including difficulties in negotiating partnerships with content providers, Apple's emphasis on broadening access to other countries and languages over pushing the technology forward for a smaller subset of users, and corporate politics that have resulted in the loss of some of Siri's biggest advocates at Apple. 

Siri is also facing strong competition from the Android platform of which it was almost a part. Google has moved quickly to develop its own virtual assistant capabilities in the form of Google Now, and many are looking for Apple to step up the pace of improvement with Siri in order to reestablish it in users' minds as a key advantage for Apple as it was touted at its 2011 launch on the iPhone 4S.


Source: MacRumors

Siri, Almost A Verizon Droid Android Exclusive

The Huffington Post is running a story covering the past, present and future of Siri, sharing some interesting facts on the AI personality, including one that’s particularly relevant to Android users. According to the Huffington Post, before Apple absorbed the company behind Siri, Verizon had reached a deal to make the virtual assistant a Droid exclusive. In other words, Siri was originally destined for Android. Verizon went as far as shooting commercials centered around Siri before the deal was later canceled.

If Apple had never bought Siri, would Google have ever felt compelled to release Google Now? Would Siri have been a multi-platform virtual assistant, lost among the Evas, Robins, Jennies, Hals and S-Voices of the world? We’ll never know the answer to those questions, and it’s all for the best. Much like the platforms they run on, Siri and Google Now push each other to become better products. Google Now may trump Siri in terms of usefulness and functionality right now, but it may not always be that way. Who know what the future of smartphone interaction holds? I can tell you one thing, it doesn't hold the Verizon Motorola Droid 7 with Siri+. Right now, it feels like Android users really dodged the bullet on that one.

Source: Huffington Post

HTC And Verizon Out The Droid Incredible 4G LTE

HTC and Verizon’s Incredible 4G has been leaked for quite a while now from pictures to specs, and today at CTIA in New Orleans the device was finally announced officially. The DROID Incredible series has been going strong on Verizon for a while now, and they have stayed true to the form factor with the 4G Incredible as well. The screen is still 4″, straying away from the larger phone trend that is taking over the market as of late, and also retaining the plateau-style back that we all have come to know and love on a DROID Incredible.

This Incredible 4G is the follow-up to the DROID Incredible 2, which was a 3G only device, and as far as specs go is a large hardware and software upgrade. This device isn’t likely going to replace everyone’s device on Verizon, but people who are die-hard Incredible fans or in search of a smaller screen may find themselves right at home with the Incredible 4G. The DROID Incredible 4G features, as I said earlier, a 4″ super LCD qHD display which is smaller than most devices available. The device also has received a processor bump to a 1.2 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 with 1 GB of RAM, meaning it will likely run ICS at blazing fast speeds. Sense 4 will come on top of Android 4.0, bringing everything that we have seen from the One series on the software end of things. ImageSense will be complementing the device’s 8MP camera, and a standard VGA front facing camera is on board as well. Beats Audio will be bringing you all of the sound for the device, but sadly Beats headphones do not come with the purchase like they did withe the Rezound.

The biggest improvement on this device compared to the Incredible 2, however, is obviously the addition of 4G LTE, something that many will agree should have been present on the Incredible 2 in the first place. Hopefully the 1700 mAh battery will be able to sustain this device for a full day on LTE, and the smaller screen size may make up for what is a somewhat small battery size. HTC has also allowed for the removal of the battery on this device, so you may want to pick up a spare battery depending on the device’s battery life.

Verizon Shows Off Droid Incredible 4G On Droid Does Site

Verizon Wireless today revealed the HTC Droid Incredible 4G through its Droid Does web site. As the name implies, the Incredible 4G is an Android 4.0 smartphone that supports Verizon's LTE 4G network. The Incredible 4G runs HTC's Sense 4.0 user interface, and is powered by a dual-core 1.2GHz processor with 1GB of RAM. It features a 4-inch qHD display, 8-megapixel main camera and VGA user-facing camera, Beats Audio, mobile hotspot for up to 10 devices, support for 32GB microSD cards. The HTC Droid Incredible 4G costs $299.99, but availability was not immediately announced by Verizon.

Verizon Announces Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Update List

Verizon Wireless has published their list of Android phones that will be getting updated to Ice Cream Sandwich "sometime later this year". The list includes: Motorola Xyboards 8.2/10.1, Xoom, Droid 4, Droid Razr Maxx, Droid Razr, and Droid Bionic; HTC Thunderbolt, Droid Incredible 2, Ryhme, Rezound, Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7/10.1, and the LG Spectrum. Some of the manufacturers of these devices have provided some sort of time table for the updates. For example, HTC said that Ice Cream Sandwich is planned to arrive during the first half of 2012. As for the phones that didn't make the list such as the Droid 3 Verizon Wireless says that it will be adding to list over time.