Rick Osterloh is coming back to Google. The former president of Motorola, who left the Lenovo-led handset maker last month, has been hired by Google to run a new division to unify the company’s disparate hardware projects, Re/code has learned.
A Google rep confirmed that Osterloh has joined the company as its newest Senior Vice President, running the new hardware product line and reporting to CEO Sundar Pichai.
I hope Google is finally getting serious about hardware. I can’t wait for more Pixel laptops, tablets, desktops, and smartphones.
That being said, as much as the Pixel devices generally get great reviews, they aren’t exactly massive sales hits, and Google also has a shaky history when it comes to its hardware efforts. We’ll have to see how this pans out, but it’ll be interesting to see what’s going to roll out of this 65th attempt at Google getting serious about hardware.
Google hardware is made to demonstrate technology. It isn’t meant to be mainstream. It almost certainly isn’t profitable. Google definitely don’t want to be seen competing with their business partners.
They’d better rethink this stance if they want to undo some of the damage their “partners” have done to Android.
Google don’t care what thier partners do as long as Google are getting the advertising revenue.
Unlike Microsoft, right?
Those were the times when an Excellence Culture almost developed at Motorola. Suspected the Stakeholders guilty in part.
A Company should be nurtured. Dividends and High Payments [and High Taxes] a thing of Good Times.
… in it’s uselessness … at least in the way it was intended.
Absolutely love the hardware, but the idea of a chromebook is just absolutely worthless.
The cheap devices are just that … cheap … and a total pain in the ass, usually.
The more expensive chromebooks are just way too expensive for an internet appliance.
Seems like google agrees, since they are killing off chrome os.
Might still get one to just run a plain old distro on, though.
I do think the 13″ screen will probably be too small to do useful work on, but it might be good for terminal work with the 3:2 aspect ratio.
I run Arch on a Pixel 2 LS and it’s pretty nice. Handy having a machine where all of the drivers are provided and everything works out of the box.
While Security at the Hardware Stack [and firmware deprecation] still unfulfilled homework :
“Earlence Fernandes, a doctoral student in computer science and engineering who led the study, said that ‘letting it control your window shades is probably fine’ [by now].”
http://phys.org/news/2016-05-smart-home-flaws-popular.html
“The emergence of several manufacturers in more than one world region, using various technical approaches (some keywords: proven components, clean slate, open hardware, compartmentalization) could promote resilience and competition.”
Anyway, the ‘Warren Buffet’ attitude toward Secure Investments is not a card Governments are anymore eager to play along, as buffoons [at least not so openly].
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596115001962
in Google’s quest to become more like Apple.
With MS seemingly failing at making cutting edge phones I guess it is up to the Chocolate Factory to compete with Apple on a wider front.
The question is, are they going to stick at it for the long term? Not just 1-2 years but 3-4 or longer.
Really eager for an inside view about what’s going on that Intel/Microsoft mobile agenda, Shotsman.