The Google Play Store has been available in India since its inception, but so far, the only content you could purchase were apps and games.

Google has now added a second category to the store with the introduction of Google Play Books. You will see the new addition immediately after launching the Play Store app on your Android device. Just like the apps, the books are arranged into various categories as well as groups such as books below ₹100, books below ₹50, etc. Read more »

You may have been surprised today to see a new app icon in your drawer, the Google Settings, getting you access to previously unseen dashboard of settings.

While the more tech savvy among us might suspect some hidden malware is at work, what’s actually at play is a silent update to the Google Play Services app. Read more »

It looks like the last year’s Olympic partnership between Samsung and Visa has worked out well for both sides. Today, the two companies announced a partnership to promote mobile NFC payments worldwide.

Under the terms of the partnership, Samsung will preinstall Visa’s payWave application into its upcoming NFC enabled smartphones, which means that the soon-to-be announced Samsung Galaxy S IV will likely be the first to carry the new tech. Read more »

Maps and Drive have long been one of the staples of Nokia Windows Phone devices, and today they’re being rolled as part of Nokia’s HERE cloud location service.

Also integrated are the Transit and City Lens apps, which allow for quick access to public transit information and nearby POIs in addition to the cartography and navigation features provided by Drive and Maps. However, the services will no longer bear the Nokia branding. Read more »

It’s the routine in action – moments after unveiling a product, the manufacturer publishes a set of promo videos, highlighting its strengths.

In the case of Nokia we’re now seeing two videos – one for the Lumia 720 and another one for the Lumia 520. These follow after the break. Read more »

HTC confirmed it is working on a new HTC Sync app that will be able to import data from iPhone backups to the upcoming HTC One flagship.

It’s still unclear if this process will work on other (or older) HTC handsets as well. Read more »

How does it feel to use Project Glass? That’s the question Google has focused on with its Project Glass promo video showing the various ways you can use the sci-fi-looking frames.

Google has also given you a chance to pre-order the Project Glass, which was previously only available for developers. You can go to Google+ and share what you would do if you had Glass (in 50 words or less) and if chosen you could be rocking it when it goes on sale. Read more »

Out of the blue Nokia has posted a video comparing its Maps app to Google’s own.

The video focuses on showing how the two solutions manage offline maps in a number of examples and things didn’t look too good on the Android device. Read more »

Nokia recently unveiled its Music+ service and now the subscription is available for the Nokia Lumia users in the US market.

Nokia Music+ aims to take on the host of currently available music streaming services with a much cheaper price tag. The latest service from Nokia offers you unlimited downloads for offline use, unlimited skips and allows you to use the service on as many devices as you have, while barely affecting your credit card bill. Read more »

Popular instant messaging client WhatsApp has gone through a major UI redesign on Android. While the former version was nothing more than just a slight revision of the iOS app, the latest update takes advantage of the new Holo UI guidelines for Android.

Right off the bat you’ll be able to see that the menu bar on top is now flat and in line with the new UI guidelines. Drop into a conversation and you will find new flat message bubbles and a redesigned text input field. Read more »

Some would say that Apple sprung back to life way before the iPhone came along and the main culprit for that was the iPod. Well it couldn’t have done it without the iTunes music store, which is having a great reason to celebrate today.

Apple just announced that the store has officially reached 25 billion song downloads. Read more »

Now that the Super Bowl is done and over, the companies that aired their ads during the game are releasing them full length on Hulu, YouTube and whatnot.

Samsung didn’t disappoint either, offering the full 4:41 minutes promo of its Galaxy Note II promo on YouTube. Read more »

Sony has announced a new service for their range of Xperia smartphones, called my Xperia. The beta version of the service will roll out to a few devices initially before it is available to all Xperia devices out there.

my Xperia works similar to Apple’s Find My iPhone and all other similar services out there. Once it’s available on your device, you log on to the service by visiting myxperia.sonymobile.com and logging in with your Google account. Read more »

If you are an Android or an iOS user, you’ll be familiar with the Speaktoit’s Assistant for sure. It’s a third-party assistant like Apple’s Siri and Google Now and does an excellent job.

It’s a really nice alternative (sometimes even better) than the default voice assistants and I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that the app is now available on Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 as well. Read more »

Facebook was able to double its advertising revenue from its mobile ad platform during last years’ holiday quarter.

This is an indicator that their migration to handheld devices in the form of mobile applications is going pretty well so far. Read more »