A report out of the Wall Street Journal last week claimed that Google will potentially welcome in up to 5 “Nexus” or lead devices this winter to help launch Jelly Bean. Once launched, all of the devices will be sold directly to customers unlocked and off-contract (hopefully at reasonable prices too). It’s just a rumor at this point, but it makes a heck of a lot of sense for Google to go this route. They are sick of carriers interfering with updates, release schedules, etc. and this would give them ultimate control.

With that said, there has only be speculation at this point as to who will make what. Will we see 3 phones and 2 tablets? 4 phones and 1 tablet? All phones? Who will make them? Will HTC, Samsung, and Motorola produce the phones with Asus and Acer making the tablets? Maybe LG will get their first shot at a Nexus phone and Samsung on the tablet front?

In today’s poll, let’s discuss it and sell each other on what combination we think would be the best. Go!

This whole battle of tech intellectual property is getting, or has gotten, out of hand. It seems that every company that you know the name of is suing or is being sued for something that they have done. Most notably for readers of this site though, is the attack on Android from all sides. Visual.ly has massed together some of the numbers and has put their infographic spin on it, and the whole thing looks just as confusing as you would expect.

The Samsung Galaxy SIII and its arrival in the U.S. is a huge deal, but for whatever reason, I get the feeling that everyone is also eagerly awaiting the DROID RAZR HD by Motorola. While most details have avoided us thus far, the original RAZR and RAZR MAXX have been big enough successes that an HD variant will likely draw in some long time Moto fans. Thanks to an event held by Motorola China, we have fresh pictures of 3 devices coming in June that give us a bit of an idea as to what we can expect with the RAZR HD here in the States. 

With China giving their approval of Google’s acquisition of Motorola over the weekend, both companies said it would be a matter of days before they closed. It took two, as they finalized the deal this morning.

Google made sure to mention that Motorola will remain a separate company and that they will license Android, which will remain open. They also noted that Sanjay Jha will step down as CEO of Motorola and that Dennis Woodside, a senior VP at Google, will take his place as the new CEO of Motorola. This move was rumored all the way back in February. Jha will help as he can to ensure a smooth transition. For those concerned about Jha, know that he made $47 million last year and also plans to take home a massive check for stepping down, now that this deal has been completed.

There were no immediate plans for change specifically noted in the press release this morning other than the fact that Woodside has brought on an all-star team of industry leaders to help the company going forward.

Now that the deal is done, are you ready to see this merger “supercharge” Android? 

Late Friday afternoon, Motorola took to its blog to help clarify its reasoning behind the decision to not upgrade the DROID 3 and DROID X2 to Ice Cream Sandwich. This note came just hours after they released a new timeline for Android 4.0 updates, which as in the past, did not include either of them. It seemed odd knowing that both devices have dual-core processors, were released right around the middle of 2011, and for the most part, have above average specs, aside from a lack of 4G LTE and only 512MB of RAM. 

The final hurdle in Google’s acquisition of Motorola has been jumped – China and its antitrust authorities signed off on the deal. Both the European Commission and U.S. Department of Justice signed off back in February, but for whatever reason, China needed more time. Thanks to this final approval, the deal is expected to close within the next week.

What does this mean now? Well, probably not a whole lot in the short term. Google has continued to stand by their “Motorola is completely separate from Google” remarks, so for at least this year, we may not see anything change. Could Google eventually start to produce their own Motorola/Google branded products? Of course they could, but would that scare off many of their other partners in the Android ecosystem?

Via:  WSJ

Cheers Scott!

The popular deals-site Daily Steals, is looking to clear out their inventory of Motorola 32GB XOOM WiFi tablets with their newest “Last Call” sale. The tabs only run $240, but are factory re-certified and come with a 90 day warranty for anyone who is wary of buying “used” tech items. As we always say, the XOOM is the OG Android tablet -being the first pure Google Experience tab on the market, the XOOM has a very healthy developer community and is also kept up quite well by Google themselves. For this price, I don’t think you’re going to see a better deal.

Via: Daily Steals

Cheers Justin!