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Nest CEO steps down as the company joins Google's home division
According to CNET, Nest has announced today that Marwan Fawaz will no longer be its CEO. As part of his departure, Nest will now be folded into Google's home and living room products team. In a joint interview with Fawaz, Rishi Chandra, vice president of product management for Google's home and living room products, said that the combination would make it easier for Google to integrate some of its machine learning technology and artificial intelligence into Nest products.
Google is buying HTC's Pixel team for $1.1 billion
After weeks (months, and years) of speculation, HTC has announced that its "Powered by HTC" R&D division -- the team behind Google's Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones -- will be purchased by Google for $1.1 billion in cash. According to HTC's CFO Peter Shen, this will mean about half -- yes, half -- of the 4,000 people in his company's R&D team will be joining Google, but he emphasized that HTC will continue developing its own range of smartphones, including its next flagship product. The agreement also grants Google a non-exclusive license for a large part of HTC's intellectual property. The deal is expected to be approved and closed by early 2018. Curious about what all of this means? You could do worse than to check out our guide to the subject from last week.
Google will release a new Pixel phone this year
The Pixel represents Google's first proper foray into the smartphone market, allowing the search giant to directly compete with Apple and cement Android's reputation as a premium platform. While sales have been steady, it's been particularly hard to get a hold of one due to component shortages. That hasn't dampened the company's plans to continue investing in its own smartphones, though: according to Rick Osterloh, VP of Hardware at Google, there will be a successor to the Pixel this year and will continue to carry a high price tag.
With the Pixel line, Google finally takes control of its phones
Google's Pixel and Pixel XL aren't just a pair of handsets that Google's mobile division is producing with a third-party, like its Nexus devices. No, these two new phones are emblematic of a dramatic shift in the way that the firm is going to build products in the future. The division, led by former Motorola chief Rick Osterloh, is behaving much more like a traditional phone manufacturer, signing deals with mobile networks and managing distribution all by itself.
Google grabs ex-Motorola president to unify its hardware groups
Rick Osterloh, former president of Motorola, is now Senior Vice President at Google in charge of a new hardware division that includes the company's Nexus devices, living room gadgets and Glass, Re/code reports. This means Nest CEO Tony Fadell is no longer leading Google's Glass initiatives, a role he took on in January 2015, though he'll stay on as a team adviser. Osterloh is no stranger to Google -- he led product development during Motorola's tenure under Google and helped develop the Moto X, Moto 360 and early Droid efforts.
Under Lenovo, Motorola picks a new but familiar leader
Motorola may have had to shuffle executives following Lenovo's acquisition plans, but the phone maker isn't straying far from its previous course. It just named company veteran Rick Osterloh as its President and COO, effective immediately. He'll provide the "business continuity" that Motorola needs right now, according to outgoing leader Jonathan Rosenberg. Recent history suggests as much. While many focused on ex-CEO Dennis Woodside as the face of the Google-era Motorola, Osterloh led product development during that period -- he can take at least some credit for attention-getting projects like the Moto X and Moto 360. He's also responsible for getting the ball rolling on Android at the company, having created the team that launched early efforts like the CLIQ and Droid.
Motorola Devours seven minutes of your life with a phone demo (video)
We're only a few breathless days away from the Devour hitting some retail locations ahead of nationwide US availability in March, so what better way to fill that gap than with an official teaser video? Moto's Rick Osterloh is our tour guide in a seven minute hands-on demo of the device, which takes us through the major attractions on offer. He firstly calls out the Qualcomm CPU inside and points to the phone's responsiveness, which is (quite naturally) followed by a couple of instances of perceptible lag between his input and the phone's reaction. All the same, it does look like a sprightly little machine, and the inclusion of Blur, Google Maps Navigation with turn-by-turn voice instructions, and Moto Phone Portal makes for a compelling software package. Head past the break to see them in action and to catch another eyeful of the hardware as well. [Thanks, Zach A.]
