Boot up: Google buys Motorola – all the links you need, and more

Motorola has tried to build quality managemtn ever earlier into its manufacturing processes. Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP

A quick burst of 7 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

"As opposed to being protected, for which MMI's patents appear to be too weak, those other Android device makers are going to become second-class citizens. Google has set its priority. I said before: don't overestimate the patent part of the deal. This is about Google maximizing its control over Android for the reasons and with the effects I roughly described herein, and on which I'll comment in greater detail going forward."

"That's not to say it wasn't a bold, brash move, or even to say it wasn't the right move for Google and for Android as a platform. But that's all relative to the position Google was in -- and that position was a weak one, and to pretend otherwise is to deny the obvious. And don't forget that it leaves Google in a tenuous situation with the two leading Android handset makers, Samsung and HTC. I think Apple and Microsoft probably feel pretty good, competitively, about having forced Google into spending $12.5 billion for Motorola -- a handset maker with rapidly declining sales, no recent profits, and misguided management."

"According to Infonetics, Motorola Mobility was the leader in set-top box revenues last year, and was also tops in hybrid IP/QAM set-top boxes -- that is, the boxes used by operators like Verizon that combine broadcast TV and over-the-top applications. By leveraging Motorola's position with carriers, Google can better solidify its bid to expand Google TV and Android into the living room."

"Google Inc. agreed to pay Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. $2.5 billion if it fails to close the purchase of the mobile-phone maker, said a person with knowledge of the situation, a fee more than six times the typical amount."

"Our sources say that Motorola was in acquisition talks with several parties, including Microsoft for quite some time. Microsoft was interested in acquiring Motorola's patent portfolio that would have allowed it to torpedo Android even further. The possibility of that deal brought Google to the negotiation table, resulting in the blockbuster sale."

Reading between the lines of Microsoft's redactions: Linux is no longer a desktop threat; Apple and Google are "mainly" its desktop rivals; mobile matters; online battle is now inside the browser; and security is in, innovation is out. Worth reading in full.

Microsoft is finally ready to talk about Windows 8. Here's the new official blog.

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Information is beautiful on the Datablog: links V right redux | Visualized

What are links and right actually for? I have this visualization with the London designer Stefanie Posavec in 2008 to try to understand political perspectives. I had a vague feeling, but no real detail. No sense of cartography. So I by the Encyclopædia Britannica roved, cross references with Wikipedia and deepened over websites like conservative resource.com shape up, and create a fluid concept map for these two blocks.

The political spectrum is of course not so polarized. Actually it is apparently a diamond shape. But that's how it especially in the media – left wing vs right-wing labour vs conservative, Democrat vs. Republican shows. And perhaps in our heads...

The image was published in my book information is beautiful in Feb 2009 and was immediately right bloggers set to. They drubbed it for his left-wing bias. I thought fair play. You have some good points. As a left-wing journalist type I had clearly - and unconsciously - the chart links seem better than biased to the right.

So I got to tedious (and sometimes heated) discussion with my right wing critics. In their feedback and no small amount of data fireballs in the comments - I updated the image refine the wording and change a few other subtle elements for a hopefully more balanced end result.

(If you're curious, you can see the original pictures on my Flickr)

But remember: this is an attempt to represent the idealized versions of the political spectrum. It is as if I am routes dense, such as a piece of rubber, so that the information and forms are exaggerated. The reality is subtle and diverse - a shape I hope in a future release.

I love this diagram. Not only because it is a very rarified form of data - is we constructed the concepts and ideas can make our world views. So it literally to act can as lens * see * what others think.

But also perhaps, it on the potential of information visualization shows. That is, seeing ideas allows us to keep seemingly conflicting value systems at the same time in our minds. In the current language, f * k with our minds.

If you like this picture, can be ordered from a nice A2 print on beautiful FSC-certified Munken art paper here.

I do InformationIsBeautiful.net, visualization dedicated information, ideas, stories and data. Twitter @ infobeautiful
This is a new and updated image from my book infographic Exploria, information is beautiful. (HarperCollins 2009). In the United States called the book the Visual Miscellaneum

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