San Francisco: Google Inc. closed on Tuesday its $12.5 billion deal for Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., a key manufacturer of smartphones and other devices that puts the Internet giant in head-to-head competition with Apple Inc..
Sanjay Jha. By Bloomberg
Google said it will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business unit that will be a licensee of Android, the Google operating system for mobile devices. “Android will remain open,” the company said.Heading the unit will be “long-time Googler” Dennis Woodside, who will take over from Sanjay Jha, who led the firm through this acquisition.
“The acquisition will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing,” the California-based Internet firm said in a statement.
Chief executive Larry Page said Google was acquiring “a great American tech company, with a track record of over 80 years of innovation”.
The completion of the deal dubbed “Googorola” follows approval by Chinese, US and European regulators, amid concerns on restrictions for Android, a Google-created free operating system for mobile devices.
Conditions from China’s ministry of commerce included Google keeping its Android software for smartphones and tablet computers free and open for at least five years. Regulators in the US and elsewhere have stressed that they will be watching to make sure that the Mountain View, California-based firm does not use Motorola Mobility to obtain an unfair advantage in markets.
Google acquires 17,000 patents with the purchase of Motorola Mobility and has been strengthening its patent portfolio in the fight for dominance in the booming smartphone and tablet market. Android snagged 51% of the US mobile phone operating system market in the three months to March, according to comScore, while Apple’s operating system had 30.7%. But in the tablet market, Apple’s iPad outmuscled its Android-powered rivals in early 2012, according to research firm IDC.
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Google Names New Motorola CMO as Deal Closes - Advertising Age
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T-Mobile picks Ericsson, Nokia Siemens for network - Yahoo Finance
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- T-Mobile USA on Tuesday said that Nokia Siemens Networks and LM Ericsson AB will supply the network equipment for its new wireless broadband network, a project worth $4 billion.
T-Mobile is commissioning a "4G LTE" network, the same technology used by Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc. for their high-speed networks. It will use, in part, radio frequencies handed over by AT&T after the bigger company backed off its deal to buy T-Mobile due to opposition from federal regulators.
In addition to handing over spectrum licenses, AT&T gave T-Mobile $3 billion in cash, which will help finance the upgrade. T-Mobile plans to have the network live next year, covering 75 percent of the 25 largest cities.
Sweden's Ericsson is one of the main suppliers for the LTE networks of Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint Nextel Corp., along with Alcatel-Lucent SA of France.
For Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint venture of Finland's Nokia Corp. and Siemens AG of Germany, the T-Mobile order represents a new chance to get into the U.S. market for network equipment. It got a $7 billion order from Harbinger Capital, a hedge fund, to build a network for its startup, LightSquared, but that project appears moribund because regulators concluded it would have interfered with GPS navigation.
T-Mobile USA is making the announcement on the first day of CTIA Wireless, the U.S. cellphone industry trade show, in New Orleans. The company is the fourth-largest wireless carrier in the U.S., with 33.2 million devices on its network. It's a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG of Germany.
Motorola In the Middle: Big Success or Failure Could Hurt Google - Top Tech News
It's official. Google has closed on its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility. But what does this mean for the merged company? There are still more questions than answers.
In a Tuesday morning blog post, Google CEO Larry Page opined about how the phones in our pockets have become supercomputers that are changing the way we live. He pointed out how it's now possible to do things we used to think were magic -- or only possible on Star Trek. Things like getting directions on the spot, watching a video on YouTube or taking a picture and sharing it instantly with friends all over the world.
"Motorola is a great American tech company that has driven the mobile 
Motorola Gets New CEO
Although Page didn't offer much insight on what Google will do with Motorola, he did announce that Sanjay Jha, who was responsible for building the company and placing that big bet on Android, has stepped down as CEO. Long-time Googler Dennis Woodside has taken the reins.
After extolling Woodside's virtues in the blog he turned his attention back to technology, indicating that Motorola would still make mobile phones, saying: "It's a well-known fact that people tend to overestimate the impact technology will have in the short term, but underestimate its significance in the longer term.
"Many users coming online today may never use a desktop machine
Motorola's Ultimate Fate
We caught up with Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis, to get his take on what happens next with Google and Motorola. He told us he's watching to see if Google uses Motorola just for its copyrights and patents or runs it as a genuine business -- and, if the latter becomes the reality, whether or not Motorola can succeed as an independent business. (continued...)
Clueful iPhone App Spies On Your Other Apps - Huffington Post
A few months back, it was revealed that several major iPhone apps, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, were sending users' data to their servers -- without notifying them. Thankfully, after that debacle, Apple began requiring all app developers to get "explicit" permission before accessing a user's info, but for those of you who want to find out whether or not your apps are still sneaking around behind your back, well ... now, there's an app for that.
Released on May 22 by antivirus software vendor Bitdefender, Clueful claims to be "the world's first and only app" that lets iOS device users discover which apps may be accessing data -- such as their location, address book and even social network accounts -- that they don't have permission to view.
"App developers can ask for, and receive, access to your precise location, your contact list and more information about you when you install their products on your iPhone," said Alexandru Catalin Cosoi, a chief security researcher at Bitdefender, in a press release. "Your iPhone is probably the most personal device you own, holding vast amounts of information about what you do, who you are and where you go. Clueful tells you what kinds of private information apps can and do access so you can make an informed decision whether to use them."
In addition, Clueful will show you which of your apps may be draining your battery, blasting you with ads, tracking your usage through different networks and more; you can even filter Clueful's list by which apps track your location, which can read your address book, etc. As CNET points out, you can also use Clueful to research what information an app may be able to access before purchasing it from the App Store. Check out a screenshot of the app in action below.
LOOK:
According to TechCrunch, the Clueful app is able to do all of this through the "Clueful Cloud," which Bitdefender created by testing tens of thousands of apps and then developing a database revealing information on how each of them works. The "Clueful Cloud" then shares this info with you through the Clueful app.
If you're interested in grabbing the app for yourself, you can purchase it for $3.99 through the App Store. Would you buy the Clueful app? Are you still worried about your app privacy? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
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T-Mobile goes back to lampooning AT&T iPhone - Yahoo Finance
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Six months after AT&T's deal to buy T-Mobile USA collapsed, T-Mobile's TV ads are going back on the attack against a favorite target: AT&T Inc.
Philipp Humm, the CEO of T-Mobile, showed off a new ad Tuesday featuring a hapless man on a motorcycle, cruising on a desert road as a woman on another motorcycle blows past him. The voiceover explains that the man represents an iPhone 4S on AT&T's network, and the woman is T-Mobile's 4G network.
The ad recalls other attack ads T-Mobile showed a year and a half ago. They likened the iPhone to a young man, carrying on his back a frumpy middle-aged man who represented AT&T's data network. The message: AT&T's network slows down the iPhone.
Those ads disappeared last spring when AT&T offered to buy T-Mobile for $39 billion. That deal collapsed in December after regulators opposed it on grounds that No. 2 carrier AT&T buying No. 4 T-Mobile would reduce competition.
Between the announcement of the deal and its collapse, T-Mobile was in limbo. That hurt the company's brand, and it's now looking at "relaunching" it, Humm told attendees at CTIA Wireless, the U.S. cellphone industry's annual trade show, which kicked off Tuesday in New Orleans.
Ralph de la Vega, the head of AT&T's wireless division, was on hand at the same event to give his opinion about the ads.
"It's comparing a phone to a network," de la Vega said. "Everyone gets that, right?"
The iPhone 4S can't use AT&T latest wireless data network, which uses so-called "LTE" technology. Nor could it utilize the top speeds on T-Mobile's network, even if it were available for T-Mobile subscribers.
"That's why this industry has a bad rap, we take the truth and we stretch it," de la Vega said.
Sprint Nextel Corp. CEO Dan Hesse, on the same panel discussion, chided both AT&T and T-Mobile for their advertising, saying some in the industry have "taken creative license around the use of the digit '4'." Both AT&T and T-Mobile have networks that are considered "3G," or "third-generation," in industry jargon, but started advertising them as "4G" when they upgraded the speeds.
Hesse argued that the wireless industry's "Achilles' heel" is the low trust people put in it, and the confusion around the network branding doesn't help.
T-Mobile subscribers could get a chance to test the claims of the motorcycle ad later this year, as T-Mobile rejiggers its network. That will, for the first time, make the iPhone compatible with T-Mobile's "4G" network. Even if T-Mobile doesn't sell the phone, used iPhones could be brought over from other carriers.
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