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Google’s Motorola-made Nexus 6 is finally a thing. Preorders didn’t go over well for everyone, but hopefully it won’t be too difficult to pick one up from a carrier or the Play Store after its official launch. Meanwhile, here’s what you can expect from the Nexus 6 if you decide to grab one. We’re unboxing the Nexus 6 and taking a closer look at what it has to offer in terms of design and overall first impressions. Is this going to be the best Android flagship in 2014? Let’s find out…

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While Google confirmed the $2.9B sale of Motorola way back in January, it is only today that the last piece of paperwork was signed and the formerly American-owned Motorola officially became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chinese electronics manufacturer Lenovo.

Announcing the completion of the acquisition on the Motorola blog, the company said that its headquarters would remain in Chicago, along with its offices in Silicon Valley … 
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Google Glass in movie theaters has long been a topic of debate, with a plethora UK cinemas banning the wearable and at least one U.S. chain doing the same. Today, however, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) issued a statement announcing a new “zero tolerance” policy against wearables in the theatre. The statement says that all wearable devices must be powered off prior to the film beginning, no questions asked.

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Version 3.5 of the Google for Android application includes a new API that developers can take advantage of to activate “Ok Google” functionality within their own apps. According to the Android developer blog, software makers can add a few lines of code to their app to enable users to search it using a global voice command.

Once the feature has been integrated into an app (Talon, for example), users will be able to say things like “Ok Google, search for 9to5google in Talon” to trigger a search for that term within Talon.

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Google has updated Drive for Android with a Material Design facelift and three new features in improved search, better sharing and an enhanced PDF viewer that make it easier for users to find, view and share through the app. The update will be rolling out on the Play Store for Android devices over the next several days.

The new search bar in Drive is easier and more predictive at finding content by updating results as each letter is typed into the field. Meanwhile, the app has improved sharing functionality that allows for users to write a custom comment on shared files so that all collaborators know why they sent it.
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Google today announced it’s adding new ways to add money to its Google Wallet service in addition to some new features that will make keeping an eye on your balance easier. The app also appears to be getting a bit of a Material Design update on Android (as pictured above).

First up, you will now be able to setup automatic bank transfers that will ensure there is always money to spend in your Google Wallet account. The recurring transfers allow you to schedule weekly, bi-weekly or monthly deposits and can be cancelled at any time:
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Google has just raised the gates on Nexus 6 preorders via the Play Store. The Nexus 6 preorder date was unveiled on its Play Store landing page earlier this month and the time has finally come…

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Earlier this year, Google released an official app for its Google Analytics service on iOS allowing users of the popular service to view data and reports on the go, but the dedicated app has only been available for iPhone and iPod touch users. Today that has changed, however, as Google has updated its official Analytics app for full iPad support.
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Re/code reports on Tuesday that senior Google executive Claire Hughes Johnson has been hired by payments company Stripe to lead business operations at the San Francisco-based tech startup. According to the report, Johnson will make the transition from Google to Stripe while taking just one day off as she switches jobs.
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Google has outlined several of the new security enhancements that have been added to Android Lollipop, the latest version of its mobile operating system, such as encryption enabled by default and a new lock screen that is more convenient and powerful to use than ever before. Read ahead for a closer look at some of the new security features.
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Robin Labs, the developmental team behind mobile assistant platform Robin.AI, has today unveiled their latest project, an app that responds to emails for you. Dubbed Less.Mail, the app handles routine email responses by automatically replying to emails based on how it interprets the message’s initial text.

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Microsoft on Monday announced that it will be eliminating its top-tier cloud storage plan and offering unlimited cloud storage to Office 365 subscribers at no additional cost. The change will begin rolling out today for Office 365 Home, Personal and University customers and will continue over the coming months.
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Last month, Google announced its future plans for Android Wear, including an update with offline music support and GPS functionality. Earlier this week, an update started rolling out to select Android Wear devices, bringing the beginnings of those features, but now Google has officially announced the update in a post on the official Android blog.

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Continuing the pre-Android 5.0 Lollipop update extravaganza, Google this evening announced that it has updated the public AppCompat library to version 21. For those unfamiliar, this essentially means that it will allow for a more Material Design look and feel in apps on devices running pre-Lollipop versions of Android. This concept is exactly what we’ve been seeing in recent Google app updates, giving us the look of Material Design without running Android 5.0.

AppCompat (aka ActionBarCompat) started out as a backport of the Android 4.0 ActionBar API for devices running on Gingerbread, providing a common API layer on top of the backported implementation and the framework implementation. AppCompat v21 delivers an API and feature-set that is up-to-date with Android 5.0

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Chardan Capital Markets analyst Jay Srivatsa believes that a combination of two Google investment decisions could signal that the company is planning to take “a different direction” with Google Glass, reports StreetInsider.

Srivatsa noted that Google had decided against further investment in Himax, a company specialising in controllers for conventional head-mounted micro-displays, at the same time as investing in virtual reality startup Magic Leap … 
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It appears that Google Plus and related services are down at the moment. This issue was recently discovered by 9to5Google and has been confirmed by several users on Twitter. Because Google Plus is down, it seems to be affecting any other connected services such as Hangouts and even YouTube comments…

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Google announced as part of its acquisition of Songza in July that it would bring some of the music streaming service’s features that users love to Google Play Music. Three months later, the company has followed through with those plans by integrating Songza’s “Concierge” feature with Play Music, enabling users to create contextual expert-curated playlists for an improved listening experience across all platforms.
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If you were wondering why Google hasn’t yet introduced an updated version of the Gmail app on Android to match its Material Design guidelines, the answer appears to be that it has something big in store. Gmail 5.0, which will be introduced as part of Android 5.0 Lollipop, will for the first time allow you to access all your email accounts within the same app, Gmail and non-Gmail alike … 
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Google has updated its How Google Fights Piracy report with details of its latest moves to remove pirate sites from its search results. A key element is improved automated demotion of sites that have received high numbers of DMCA takedown notices.

In August 2012 we first announced that we would downrank sites for which we received a large number of valid DMCA notices. We’ve now refined the signal in ways we expect to visibly affect the rankings of some of the most notorious sites. This update will roll out globally starting [this week].

The “most notorious sites” are likely to include rapidgator.net, filestube.com and dilandau.eu, each of which has, notes Gizmodo, received at least 11 million individual takedown requests … 
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