You may have not hear of Hugo Barra before, but he's one of the few in Google's "high-ranks", and was Android VP. Now, he's about to head halfway across the world and join the ranks of Xiaomi, one of the largest (or the largest) smartphone manufacturers in China - also as VP.
It's still to early to figure out what this means for Android. Xiaomi already has their MIUI operating system - that is based on the open-source Android. Hiring Barra may mean that they either intend to get closer to the standard Android (which I think is unlikely), or - much more likely - intend to use his expertise and experience to further enhance and evolve their own system.
But there's also another small tidbit of info that might have something to do with Hugo Barra leaving Google... Apparently Sergey Brin is no longer with his wife Anne Wojcicki, and is in a relationship with a Google co-worker that has previously been involved with Hugo Barra. Some say that Barra's exit has nothing to do with this... but one can't stop wonder: if NSA's agents have been spying on their love interests, what would you do if you had access to anyone's Gmail account at will? Maybe Barra is indeed better off going to China and work on improving a NSA/Google-resistant mobile OS.
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