Samsung is all set to buy 3% stake of the Japanese electronics manufacturer Sharp, who is currently struggling and trying to re-build its operations. Sharp has been mounting up with losses and has had a hard time raising funds after its credit rating status was changed last year.

The partnership with the South Korean firm might just be the breakthrough the company is looking for, to get back to the winning ways. Samsung can also be one of the key consumers of Sharp’s products and can surely help the struggling company to improve its production and operations. Read more »

Sony India has signed the popular Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif as a brand ambassador for the Xperia range of smartphones. The latest association is expected to boost the brand’s value in the Indian market and help the company plans to extend the presence of Xperia smartphones there.

Sony also expects to capture more of the youth market as the actor is highly popular among the younger audience. Meanwhile, Sony has tripled its investment from Rs. 100 crore to Rs. 300 crores for the marketing of its Xperia range of smartphones. Read more »

Nearly three months after releasing the much awaited Maps application for iOS, Google has finally released an update for it, which brings with it some useful new features.

One of the key new features is the ability to search through your Google contacts. All you have to do is sign into your Google account and then just type the name of the contact into the search field. The app still gives preference to locations but if you wait a while the contact name will appear. Read more »

A new version of the popular Humble Bundle is out and brings with it some exciting new games. For those who are not aware, Humble Bundle is a bundle of games that you can purchase for much less than the total price of all the included games. In fact, you are given the option to name your own price and decide how it is distributed among the game developers, The Humble Bundle team and a charitable organization.

Now on to the latest bundle, the Humble Bundle 5 includes Beat Hazard Ultra, Dynamite Jack, Solar 2, NightSky HD and EFF. If you pay above $6.64 average price, then you also get Dungeon Defenders along with all its DLC and Super Hexagon. And and as usual, they have included all the soundstracks to the games. Read more »

It’s already a year, since the popular Android Market was rebranded as Google Play. The newly launched app store for Android is now celebrating its first anniversary with lots of offers, discounts and goodies.

Google has partnered with several publishers to celebrate its successful run and offers discounts and great deals for a limited period. Google’s latest promotion includes e-books, movies, applications, exclusive level upgrades in games and whatnot. Read more »

Google has updated the beta version of Chrome for Android with some useful new features. v26.0.1410.26 now comes with password and autofill sync, which as you can tell, syncs your passwords and autofill information from the desktop version of the Chrome browser with your phone and vice-versa. This feature, however, only works with Chrome 26 for desktop for now, which is still in beta.

But another hidden new feature is the ability to compress web page data, Opera Mini style. We talked about this feature a couple of days ago but back then it involved a convoluted procedure to enable. Although it’s still not as easy as just going to the Settings and enabling it, you can still enable it without having to use the Android SDK. Read more »

The popular Spanish footballer Andres Iniesta, who is a brand ambassador for Sony, has kicked-off the Xperia Z’s global release by delivering the smartphone to a few lucky fans.

The first 10 buyers of the company’s flagship smartphone were given a chance to interact with the star and the fans were able to talk to him and of course get the autographs along with the player signed shirts. Read more »

Canon has developed a high-sensitivity, low-noise, full-frame 35mm sensor specifically for video capture. The new sensor opts for 19-micron pixels, which are 7.5 times bigger than those on the EOS-1D X.

The use of large pixels here results in a sensor that can capture video without losing any resolution or space between the pixels gaining incredible high-sensitivity in low-light. It’s a similar thing to what HTC tried to achieve with the One Ultrapixel camera, except on a much bigger sensor. Read more »

There’s a new service on the Android block that allows you to download as much premium apps as you’d like and for a fixed monthly fee. It’s called Mobiroo and for $4.99 per month, it’ll give you access to a wide library of premium Android apps.

The service is brand new, and as you’d imagine the number of apps on tap isn’t very long. Neither is it made of very popular apps, sadly. Read more »

The latest Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean update for the Verizon’s Samsung Galaxy Nexus has leaked courtesy of a XDA member. The leaked ROM is said to be pulled directly from the Google OTA server, which also suggests that the official rollout might just be around the corner.

Since, the leaked Android 4.2 Jelly bean update is the actual OTA file, it is for the stock and un-rooted smartphones. The latest update has a build JDQ39, but it remains to be seen if that is the final version. Read more »

LG has officially launched special cases called the Quick Covers, for its Optimus G pro phablet, which was unveiled at the recently concluded Mobile World Congress.

LG’s latest accessory for its flagship device is said to be inspired by Apple’s Smart Cover. The Quick Cover for LG Optimus G Pro uses a magnetic material and automatically turns on the screen, when opened and shuts it down when closed. Read more »

Sony had an impressive video wall at its MWC booth, which was built entirely out of Sony Xperia ZL smartphones (196 of them). And it’s a candidate for a world record – it’s not official yet, but the current record is held by a setup with only 72 phones. Guinness is expected to confirm the record.

The video wall was created by Visionmill and one of the guys who worked on it, Matt Mapleston, shared some details on the wall on his blog. Read more »

A few weeks ago, we heard that Opera was planning on switching over the open source WebKit engine to power its mobile browser on the Android platform, instead of the Presto engine it is currently using. WebKit is the same engine that powers browsers such as Safari, Chrome and the stock Android browser.

Opera has now released a beta version of a new browser for Android that uses this WebKit engine. We decided to give it a try and see how it compares against Chrome. Read more »

Nikon has announced two new compact cameras, the Coolpix A and the Coolpix P330. The Coolpix A is the company’s first compact camera with a DX-format sensor. DX-format is essentially Nikon’s name for APS-C sensors that they usually reserve for their DSLR cameras and having it in a compact camera is quite impressive.

The DX-format CMOS sensor has a resolution of 16.2 megapixel and a 18.5mm (28mm equivalent) prime lens with an f/2.8 aperture. The Coolpix A is capable of shooting at 4 frames per second. Other specs include a 3-inch, 921k-dot LCD, 1080p30 video recording, built-in flash, hotshoe and RAW shooting mode. Read more »

It looks like the Sony Xperia Z SO-02E for the Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo is using a display unit with noticeably better quality than its globally available C6603 counterpart. A photo shoot, comparing the screens of the two devices side by side reveals the difference.

As you can see in the image above, the Sony Xperia Z SO-02E sports a display visibly punchier colors and arguably better viewing angles. Read more »