Marshmallow, the official name of Android M

Android M is now officially Android 6.0 Marshmallow. If any of you managed to guess the right name, feel free to give yourself a pat on the back.

Google made it official via a blog post on the Official Android Developers Blog as well as by placing its mascot holding a marshmallow in front of the Android headquarters at Mountain View, California. In addition to this, the tweet from Dave Burke, VP of Engineering (Android), Google, also confirms the same

Android M was first unveiled by Google at the Google I/O event earlier this year, and is expected to make its way to devices by the end of the year. Although Android M is quite similar to Android Lollipop in terms of appearance, the focus is more on things under the hood by working on things like RAM optimization, battery optimization, advanced privacy settings, etc.

The other interesting features that will come with Android Marshmallow are native support for fingerprint scanning, app permissions manager, USB Type-C connector support, Google Now on tap, etc. The app permissions manager is a really good feature as it will give you the choice to allow/disallow any specific permission(s) from the list of all the permissions asked by app. You can make and change your choices any time even after installing the app.

Besides announcing the name, Google also announced the release of the official Android 6.0 SDK and final M Preview. It means that, developers can use Android’s latest API, API level 23, in their Android apps and publish them on the Play Store. The final M preview is available for Nexus 5, 6, 9, and the Nexus Player. If you want to try it out, then you can do so by waiting for an OTA update or by downloading the device system images.

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Google announces standalone website for Hangouts

Jordanna Chord, a software engineer at Google, has announced on her Google+ page that Google has given Hangouts its own personal domain name on the internet. She added, "From our new site you'll be able to take advantage of the best of Hangouts in the browser, along with an inspiring image to get you through the day." 

Earlier, there were three ways to access Hangouts, though Gmail, Google+, or though brower plugins. While methods are still available, the aim of the new website is to makes things much more straight forward. Users simply need to sign-in to their Google account and visit the Hangouts website. It will welcome you and will show three quick options to initiate video call, audio call, or chat.

From the sidebar on the left, users can easily switch among contacts, conversations, and phone calls. The rest of the options can be accessed by clicking on the 'three dot' icon present just below the phone calls option. It will give you access to settings and links to the Hangouts app download page. The Hangouts website also shows new images in the background that keep changing over time. 

Recently, Google also released an update for Hangouts app on Android and they have already made Hangouts the sole messaging app after shutting down GTalk earlier this year.  Other than this, Google has also announced Marshmallow as the official name of Android M along with the release of Android API level 23 and final M preview for users to try out.

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Lenovo and Moto will 'Make in India' too

Lenovo announced today that it will make smartphones for its own brand and for Motorola Mobility in India, out of its manufacturing plant in Sriperumbudur, Chennai. Moto E units are already rolling out of the Chennai plant, while Lenovo has stated that its K3 Note will follow soon. The plant presently has a 6 million units manufacturing capacity, with Lenovo projecting a target of 14 million units manufacturing capacity for the next fiscal year.

The plant will house separate manufacturing lines for Motorola and Lenovo devices, and will have 1,500 employees for manufacturing, testing and assembly lines. The companies have stated “huge success” in India as the reason to decide on manufacturing in the country. Previously, Lenovo had PC manufacturing plants in the country, and hopes to see similar success with its cellphones too. 

Chen Xudong, President MBG group and Chairman of Motorola Mobility Operating Board, stated via the official press release, “Lenovo is not new to manufacturing in India. We recognised the potential of India and invested in PC manufacturing several years ago. 

We are excited to expand our presence, and tap into India’s competent talent pool that will enable us to develop cutting-edge products for our customers across the world.” Alongside manufacturing, supply chain operation and back-end services integration are also under way. Amar Babu, Chairman of Lenovo India and COO of Lenovo Asia-Pacific, stated that manufacturing locally in India will not result in online-only cellphones like the Lenovo K3 Note to be brought to offline retail stores. Distribution strategies are presently being discussed, but as of now, the cellphones will be sold and distributed using the existing system only.

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