Just a few weeks after releasing it, Google has updated its Messenger app with the ability to allow you to choose your own colors for individual contacts, a feature requested by many. Earlier, the app used to do this automatically.

To access the feature, go to the “People and Options” button from the overflow menu and select the color you want to assign to the contact. In addition, the update also brings some Material Design related animations following complaints of a significant delay and lag in the old sliding animation. Read more »

Barring Volkswagen, Samsung Electronics has surpassed all other global companies in terms of R&D spending this year, according to a report from Strategy&. The South Korean company has been ranked No. 1 among all technology companies and No. 2 across all industries.

According to the sustainability report 2014, the company has boosted its R&D workforce by 27% since 2010, which now stands at 63,628 employees. In 2012, Samsung opened an R&D center in Finland, followed by one in Silicon Valley the next year. This year, the company has spent around 6.4 percent of its total revenue, or $13.4 billion, on research and development. Read more »

A day after the company announced annual management changes, which turned out to be smaller than expected, Samsung Electronics announced that it has agreed to sell its optical material business to US-based specialty glass maker Corning.

“We have decided to sell our fibre optics business, in order to focus on our core business areas,” a company spokesperson said. Read more »

Google has added seven new Android apps to the Chrome Web Store, including cooking community app Cookpad Recipes, travel app Couchsurfing, eBook and audiobook lending service OverDrive, and more.

These apps join existing Android apps that are compatible with Chrome OS, including Evernote, Duolingo, Vine, Sight Words, and more, and can be found in the “Available for Android” collection on the Chrome Web Store. The company is also encouraging users to nominate new apps that they want to be added next. Read more »

Microsoft has updated Skype for Android with support for picture-in-picture, allowing you to keep a video call going while multitasking.

This means that now you can come out of the Skype window in the middle of a video call, switch over to another app, and continue with the conversation. The feature, which is already available on tablets, should be rolling out to smartphones very soon. Read more »

Just a few months after Sony’s Playstation network was knocked offline after being hit by a DDoS attack, hackers have compromised Sony Pictures Entertainment’s computer network, stealing sensitive data and forcing the company to shut down its systems. According to a Reddit user, who claims to be a former Sony Pictures worker, the following image appeared on all corporate systems:

The hackers claim to be part of a group called #GOP, which refers to Guardians of Peace apparently, although the request referenced in the image isn’t yet known. According to The Next Web, the ZIP files mentioned in the image contain documents pertaining to financial records along with private keys for access to servers. Read more »

Google is rolling out a new version of Google Maps for Android, bringing some new useful features to the most popular online mapping service. The update bumps the app version to 9.1, and comes just a few weeks after the version 9.0 was released.

The updated app will provide more information about destinations and alternate routes — it will display the current weather and time at the given location, along with some interesting facts about your destination, and will also let you know exactly how much time the alternate route will save. One of the significant additions in the new version is that the app will now respond audibly to your requests for showing or hiding traffic. Read more »

A Fleksy keyboard user has broken his own Guinness World Record for the fastest typing on a mobile device. Marcel Fernandes Filho, who had a previous record of speed-texting at 18.19 seconds, has set a new record of 17.00 seconds.

The Brazilian teenager used an iPhone 6 Plus with a Fleksy touchscreen keyboard to type the phrase “The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.” Read more »