Motorola won't be assembling phones in the United States for much longer. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the company will close its Texas factory - essential to its Moto Maker assembly process - by the end of this year. Motorola has since confirmed the unfortunate news to The Verge. And the reason is simple: Motorola's smartphones aren't selling well enough to keep the place running. "What we found was that the North American market was exceptionally tough," Motorola President Rick Osterloh told the Journal. The decision potentially leaves hundreds of American workers out of a job.

"What we found was that the North American market …

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There's a new person in charge of Motorola Mobility. Rick Osterloh has been named president and COO of the mobile company - which is in the midst of a sale to Lenovo. Osterloh takes on his new role immediately and will report to Google until Lenovo's purchase of Motorola is finalized and approved. After that, it's really anyone's guess how long he'll stick around. But at least for the immediate future, he's at the helm of the Moto X maker.

And according to outgoing COO Jonathan Rosenberg, Osterloh played a big part in the reinvention of Motorola that occurred under Google. "Rick is a Silicon Valley veteran and a familiar face across Motorol …

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Last month Google announced that it was selling off Motorola Mobility to Lenovo, and the inevitable executive shakeup is coming to pass. According to The Wall Street Journal Dennis Woodside, who became Motorola Mobility's CEO when Mountain View bought the company, is headed to Dropbox as the company's first chief operating officer.

Woodside had actually been an executive at Google for years before taking the Motorola job, and made such an impression in Silicon Valley that Apple's Tim Cook actually tried to hire him away from the company at one point. However, despite overseeing phones like the Moto X, Woodside was unable to jumpstart Motoro …

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In a new interview with The Wall Street Journal, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked for his thoughts on Google's pending sale of Motorola to Lenovo. "I wasn't surprised," Cook said, calling the deal "a logical transaction." Cook pointed out that Motorola was a financial disaster for Google - a point many others have raised as reason enough for a sale. But Apple's chief executive also took a shot at Mountain View, describing Motorola as something that Google wasn't "committed to."

"…The experience on Android tablets is so crappy…"

"I think it's really hard to do hardware, software and services and to link all those things together," said Cook, repe …

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Google's blockbuster $2.9 billion sale of Motorola Mobility to Lenovo won't include the Advanced Technology and Projects group led by former DARPA director Regina Dugan. The news was confirmed today on a conference call with Lenovo, and sources familiar with the matter say the group will be integrated with Google's Android team, where Dugan will report to Sundar Pichai but maintain a more independent role.

Dugan, who was named to The Verge 50 earlier this year, manages a team of just under 100 people, all of whom will be moving from their current offices in Sunnyvale to Google's Mountain View office.

Google wants to scale Project Ara

The m …

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