Update: We have received a statement from Google that confirms Hugo Barra's departure:
"We wish Hugo Barra the best. We'll miss him at Google and we're excited that he is staying within the Android ecosystem."
Update 2: Barra's taken to Google+ to announce that
he will indeed be joining Xiaomi as VP Global in a few weeks. We've
added his blog post after the break and have updated the post to reflect
the confirmation. Xiaomi has also confirmed the appointment.
Barely a month after he was showing off Google's new Nexus 7 tablet Hugo Barra is departing to join Xiaomi, according to
AllThingsD.
Part of Google since March 2008, as the Vice President of product
management for Android he's been a regular face to anyone that's watched
Google I/O events and Nexus product launches over the past few years.
With his exit Barra follows Android creator
Andy Rubin, who stepped away from the Android team three months earlier. It's a huge score for
Xiaomi, a company that goes from
strength to strength in China, with smartphones that run on a
heavily customized (and customizable) Android ROM. The company's also dabbled in
smart TV boxes, which could make for a very familiar role for a
former Googler.
According to Xiaomi, he will be in charge of steering the company's
global expansion starting in October.
I will be brining a fully articulated and animated 3D printed humanoid animatronic robot. The build is based on the open source InMoov project by Gael Langevin. This is an amazing project with hundreds of parts and a growing community of makers adding freatures like eye tracking, hand and finger control using the Kinect and LeapMotion devices. The build is underway, and will be complete in time for World Maker Faire. I believe there have been InMoov bots partially assembled at other Maker Faires, but this robot will be a complete upper body build.
