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After only offering Hire for a bit more than two years and launching a dedicated Android app about a year ago, Google has decided to sunset its recruitment tool. The paid service allows smaller US companies to easily post job offers with automatic Calendar, Sheets, and Gmail integration, making it simple to sift through applicants and find the perfect match. Hire is still available through September 2020, so firms using it have due time to find an alternative.
Last summer, Google unveiled a new recruitment tool aimed at helping small and medium-sized businesses to bring in fresh talent. It's only been available as a web app up to now, but a dedicated Android app has just gone live on the Play Store, although not officially released just yet.
In a surprise move, Google's chief of search and artificial intelligence John Giannandrea stepped down on Monday. Yesterday, it was reported that he's been hired by Apple. Giannandrea had been with Google since its acquisition of startup Metaweb in 2010.
Do you remember the huge scandal that was Carrier iQ? It's alright if you don't - it's been over four years since the company's data-logging mobile phone software was revealed, resulting in accusations of privacy violations, lax security, lawsuits both from and against the software maker and its partners, and eventually the removal of Carrier iQ code from phones via security patches. The months-long scandal basically killed Carrier iQ as a company... but now its corporate assets are owned by a carrier jokingly referred to as "the Death Star." There's no way that can go wrong, is there?
Sygic, the company behind one of the world's most popular mobile navigation apps, has purchased Fuelio. And to sweeten the deal for users, the company is making all of the app's pro features available for free. That includes Dropbox and Google syncing, a widget, and detailed information presented in the form of stats, summaries, and charts.
Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has hired another former Google employee to help the company with its big ambitions. This time around, according to The Wall Street Journal, it has picked up Jai Mani, who will serve as lead product manager in India. The ex-Googler reportedly worked as a strategy and analytics associate for Google Play.
Google Glass hasn't exactly set the world on fire, but it wasn't meant to. It and other projects under the "Google X" team were designed to be experimental, and we're still months away from seeing it hit a retail market at the very least. Even so, the news that one of the original architects of Glass is leaving for the distant shores (if not the greener pastures) of Amazon is a little disheartening. Google X director Babak Parviz announced his employment change on Google+ last night.
Cyanogen, the corporate arm of the popular CyanogenMod custom ROM, is on a roll. After a few high-profile hires from the world of aftermarket Android ROMs earlier this year, the company is after some more conventional hires for its leadership team, dipping their toes into the pool of corporate technology. This week they welcome Tyler Carper, formerly of HTC, Vikram Natarajan, formerly of OEM parts manufacturer MediaTek, and Dave Herman, formerly of Microsoft, Amazon, and Hulu, as new vice presidents.
The FreeXperia team of contributors help maintain CyanogenMod support for Xperia devices, and they've done such a great job that Sony has decided to hire one of the group's developers. Alin Jerpelea was one of FreeXperia's founders in 2010, and he is now the newest member of Sony's Developer Program. Having already built up a reputation for his work bringing the freshest CyanogenMod ROMs to Sony devices, he will now help the company with its open source initiatives.
HTC has reportedly snagged up Paul Golden, a former Samsung US marketing executive who helped turn the Galaxy brand into a household name (or at least the closest an Android device has come), according to a Bloomberg report. He will serve as a consultant for Chairman Cher Wang. During his time with Samsung, from 2008 to 2012, the company's global smartphone market share jumped from 4.5% to 21%. HTC's, meanwhile, currently sits at less than 2%.
Cyanogen, Inc. has been adding staff to its small but growing roster at a steady pace ever since the company had its big coming out party. And like its initial team, a lot of them have come from the Android modding and ROM community. Cyanogen's latest hire might be familiar to some of you: François Simond, better known online as "Supercurio." Mr. Simond was kind enough to let us break the news, and also pick his brain on topics like CyanogenMod, audio and video calibration, and mobile computing in general.
We've been trying to keep our heads up about the Lenovo-Motorola deal, but let's be honest: news like this is not encouraging. A Wall Street Journal report claims that Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside, whom many had credited with the company's impressive new product lines in 2013, is leaving for Dropbox. Woodside began working for Motorola after more than ten years at Google, succeeding Sanjay Jha after Google acquired the company.
It looks like Cyanogen Inc., the company formed to further develop and promote the CyanogenMod custom Android ROM, is on a bit of a hiring spree. Just this morning we heard that the creator of the popular AOKP ROM has joined the company. Now Clark Cheff, better known online as 0xD34D, has also joined forces with Steve & Co. as a software engineer. Scheff is known for founding the ChameleonOS ROM, among other various projects.
In an odd bit of M&A news, the developers at Bitspin announced that the small company will be joining forces with Google. Whether Google has purchased the company outright or merely hired its Zurich-based development team isn't clear, but in either case, the big G will be benefitting from their impressive user interface experience soon. Google has not commented on the situation, and there is no dollar amount posted on the Bitspin website.