motorola home

Google promised to safeguard Arris in Moto-TiVo spat

Google apparently sweetened the sale of its Motorola set-top box business to Arris in an unusual way -- by largely indemnifying Arris against potential losses in a Motorola-TiVo patent tussle.

According to TechCrunch, which listened to a conference call Arris CEO Bob Stanzione held with analysts yesterday, Google has offered to cap any liability Arris might face in the event Motorola's set-top box business Home is found to have violated patents owned by DVR maker TiVo.

The trouble started in October when TiVo filed a patent-infringement claim against Motorola, saying that the Google-owned company's set-top boxes were infringing … Read more

Google sells Motorola Home set-top biz to Arris for $2.3B

Google has sold the Motorola Home set-top business -- which it inherited as part of its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility earlier this year -- to the Arris Group, for $2.35 billion in cash and stock.

Under the terms of the deal, Google will receive $2.05 billion in cash and $300 million in newly issued stock, giving it a 15.7 percent ownership stake in Arris upon the deal's closure. Arris will also gain access to a collection of Motorola Mobility patents.

The broadband technology provider is expected to use the acquisition to enhance the … Read more

Motorola Home Gateway puts your entire home in the cloud, almost

LAS VEGAS--You may never really be away from home again.

Motorola demoed today at CES 2012 its Home Gateway, a device about the size of a compact router, designed to bridge all appliances of your home, from IP cameras to TVs to light bulbs, and allow you to monitor and manage them over the Internet with a mobile app.

During the demo, Motorola showed how a person could control different devices, like switching desk lights on and off or dimming them, or viewing surveillance camera footage, all in a single mobile app.

Motorola said the Home Gateway is the latest in its 4Home series of technology that "delivers the connected home in a smart and simple way." Most of the devices can be paired with the Home Gateway via a single button push. Devices that don't support any connectivity standard, such as an old refrigerator, can be added to the network via a Z-Wave adapter and then the user can monitor their energy usage and even turn them on or off.… Read more