Lenovo acquires Motorola from Google for US $3 billion

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Lenovo has bought Motorola Mobility from Google for US $3 billion. This latest shocker is the latest chapter in the story of Motorola Mobility, a company that was bought by Google in 2012 and that union produced two smartphone models that diversified the Android smartphone landscape. Google says that it thinks Lenovo has what it takes to scale Motorola to a global company which makes sense since Lenovo is already currently a top-three player in the Chinese and Asian smartphone market. Lenovo recently became the leading PC manufacturer, it will be remembered that it similarly purchased IBM's computer business and built it into multiple product lines.

Lenovo gets the Motorola brand, trademark portfolio and access to 2,000 phone and mobile patents which Google will still own. Can Lenovo propel Motorola to the next level as it did the ThinkPad line of notebooks? Who is the big winner in this transaction and what are the repercussions for Google's own mobile device play? Stay tuned as more news unfolds.

Will the Nexus 5 be sold in new colours?

Certain leaks are pointing to the possibility of seeing the Nexus 5 smartphone in various colours aside from the standard black and white variants. Rumour has it that we'll see Nexus 5's in red, blue, yellow and green. While there's not telling if this is a hoax or a way to further entice new users into the Nexus fold, using Googly colours is a strategy Google currently employs for it's most recent HP Chromebook 11 models (although certain colours, it seems, are not available in all markets). Stay tuned for developments.

Source: Phandroid

Moto Assist update for Moto X now enables voice response to texts while driving

US models of the Motorola Moto X smartphone that are running the Android 4.4 KitKat upgrade received a notable update in the Moto Assist feature which automates tasks when you are driving, in a meeting or sleeping. The latest update brings the ability to respond to text messages via voice when the Moto X senses you are driving (which it can do with it's motion co-processor). This is good news for all Moto X owners since it will extend the functionality of their device when the update is made available by their respective country carriers. I plan on testing the new Moto Assist feature on my developer Moto X to see just how much of an improvement the update brings. 

Google planning to fix Nexus 5 camera with an OTA Android 4.4.1 update

By Corey Herscu

And boom goes the dynamite.

When Google launched the Nexus 5 just over a month ago, there were two key love/hate features: Android 4.4 KitKat was loved, the poor camera functionality was not. From my usage of the device, as much as I adored the new features that came with KitKat, I couldn't get over how unusable the camera was (this isn't to say hacks aren't available to fix the issue. I am talking about out of box experience), that's why I swapped out to a different device for an improved cameraphone experience.

Well, friends, the gaping camera issue has finally been acknowledged. According to Dave Burke, Director of Engineering at Google, the issue came down to "tweaking how long the shutter stayed open in different lighting scenarios. The team initially thought the optical image stabilization, which is built into the Nexus 5′s hardware, would prevent blurriness, but it didn’t compensate enough for the software’s tendency to force the shutter to overstay its welcome."

According to The Verge, Google plans a 4.4.1 rollout to address these concerns with an almost exclusive focus improving the overall camera performance. 

Via TheVerge