Motorola – AMP

Motorola Moto X Style gets Android 6.0 Marshmallow update in India

According to Businessweek, Nokia is expected to announce a partnership with Microsoft this week, which will put the Windows Phone 7 mobile OS on future Nokia devices. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop basically said this was going to happen in his memo, and from the looks of it he’s wasting no time making it happen.

Nokia also talked with Google CEO Eric Schmidt about the possiblility of putting Android on Nokia phones, but those dealings fell through. (Sidenote: GOD DAMMIT.) Both companies hope the partnership will help them get back into the game against the likes of smartphone hardware and software makers such as Apple, Google, Samsung and HTC. Businessweek expects Elop to make this announcement tomorrow. [Businessweek]

Apple and Google settle Motorola patent disagreement and agree to cooperate on patent reform

(Reuters) – Apple Inc and Google Inc’s Motorola Mobility unit have agreed to settle all patent litigation between them over smartphone technology, ending one of the highest profile lawsuits in technology.

In a joint statement on Friday, the companies said the settlement does not include a cross license to their respective patents.

“Apple and Google have also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform,” the statement said.

Apple and companies that make phones using Google’s Android software have filed dozens of such lawsuits against each other around the world to protect their technology. Apple argued that Android phones that use Google software copy its iPhones.

The two companies informed a federal appeals court in Washington that the cases should be dismissed, according to filings on Friday. However, the deal does not appear to apply to Apple’s litigation against Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, as no dismissal notices were filed in those cases.

The most high-profile case between Apple and Motorola began in 2010. Motorola accused Apple of infringing several patents, including one essential to how cell phones operate on a 3G network, while Apple said Motorola violated its patents to certain smartphone features.

First taste of Honeycomb: Android 3.0 user interface preview

Google has released an early preview of the Android 3.0 software development kit (SDK). Android 3.0—codenamed Honeycomb—introduces Android’s new tablet user interface, which is expected to officially debut next month on Motorola’s Xoom tablet. Developers will be able to use the SDK preview to get a head start on updating their applications to support the tablet form factor.

The SDK also offers Android enthusiasts an early look at the new tablet user interface. It includes a partial Android 3.0 environment that runs in the Android emulator. Due to the emulator’s glacially slow performance, however, we weren’t really able to get an accurate feel for the responsiveness of the interface. The following screenshots highlight some of the major characteristics that differentiate Honeycomb’s tablet interface from Android’s conventional smartphone interface, but keep in mind that it’s still just a preview build for developers and might not accurately represent what the platform will look like on an actual product.

The Honeycomb home screen comes with sophisticated scrolling widgets and can accommodate much more content than the conventional Android home screen. Like the traditional Android home screen, it still comes with multiple pages that the user can rotate through by swiping right and left.