Top News of the week: Moto G launch, Red Nexus 5, Flappy Bird and more!

New phone launches, upheavals in the world of technology, company acquisitions and more — this week has been a rather busy one. Check out some of the top news of this week:

Tata Motors and Samsung have entered into a collaboration under which the South Korean electronics major will provide in-car infotainment systems to the Indian auto maker. Tata Motors would launch passenger vehicles next year equipped with Samsung’s ‘Drive Link Application’ on MirrorLink technology that will help driver to navigate, answer calls and access Internet and music.

There have been rumours how Apple’s aggressively pushing to take its Arizona plant live in the recent past and it is being believed that Apple along with GT Advanced Technologies plans to start manufacturing sapphire crystal displays for its future devices. Now, 9To5Mac reports that GT Advanced has already received 518 furnace and chamber systems. This would reportedly enable it to build about 103 million to 116 million 5-inch iPhone displays per year.

Google Inc bought a 5.94 percent stake in China’s Lenovo Group Ltd last month for $750 million, according to a disclosure on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Google acquired 618.3 million Lenovo shares at $1.213 per share on 30 January, the stock exchange said late on Thursday. Lenovo agreed to buy Google’s Motorola handset division last week for $2.91 billion in a cash and stock deal.

Apple Inc has repurchased $14 billion worth of its stock in the last two weeks after disappointing first-quarter results, the Wall Street Journal reported quoting Chief Executive Tim Cook. Cook told the paper in an interview that Apple was “surprised” by the 8 percent decline in its shares on January 28, the day after it reported quarterly results.  Lower-than-expected holiday iPhone sales and a weak revenue forecast by Apple renewed fears about lower Chinese demand and a tepid global market.

Sonic and his three pals — tinkering fox Tails, brutish echidna Knuckles and hammer-wielding hedgehog Amy — are starring together in a new Nintendo 3DS and Wii U game, as well as a Cartoon Network series set for release later this year, called “Sonic Boom.” The games and TV series will share the new style, voice actors, locales, storylines and more. The collaborative take on “Sonic” will extend to merchandising, too.

To celebrate the opening of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Google has published a rainbow-coloured doodle indicating its support to the LGBT community in a country where harsh anti-gay laws have drawn much ire. The Google Doodle highlights athletes engaging in various winter sports and clicking on it links you to a search page on the Olympic charter.

Below the search bar is posted Principle Six of the Olympic Charter, which reads: “The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.”

Finally, LG has officially launched its G Flex with a curved display in India. The smartphone is expected to be made available this month for a price of Rs 69,999. Earlier this week, it was spotted online sporting a similar price tag. At that price, the G Flex is quite easily the most expensive Android phone in the market and if it weren’t for the 64GB iPhone 5s (priced at around Rs 73,000), the G Flex would be the most expensive smartphone overall as well.

As reported by Nikkei yesterday, Sony has sold off its Vaio PC business to a Japanese investment fund. The company had been in discussions with Japan Industrial Partners after rumours of Lenovo looking to form an alliance with Sony for the PC business emerged. As PC makers struggled in an increasingly smartphone-driven world, consolidations were expected, but Sony has preferred to go with an investment fund instead of a rival PC maker in offloading the Vaio PC business.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock since the past week or so, you’ve heard of, seen, and possibly even been sucked into the madness that is Flappy Bird. The new runaway hit game on Android and iOS has seen $50,000 a day being made out of in-app advertisements now.

The impossible game with a fairly smooth learning curve involves users tapping on the screen to keep a bird in flight. The bird needs to navigate its way between Super Mario style green pipes that are both on the ceiling and the floor, leaving very little space for the tottering birdie to fly through. If you thought the game sounded simple, you’re pretty mistaken.

Amazon India has launched three new stores today in the form of Video games, Music and Luggage & Bags on its marketplace, www.amazon.in. With the launch of these three new categories, there are a total of 18 product categories on the Indian store, with the company saying a total of 900,000 products and more than 12 million books (physical and e-books) currently being sold.

After a hiatus of nearly two years, Motorola has made a comeback to the Indian market with the launch of the Moto G. The company launched the phone in New Delhi and the mid-ranger is priced at Rs 12,499 onwards. That’s the price for the 8GB version of the phone, while the 16GB model will retail for Rs 13,999. Flipkart, which was involved in the pre-launch promotion, will have exclusive rights to sell the phone online in India, although it does appear that it is available at other retailers.

The leaked Red Nexus 5 that sparked excitement last week was real after all. The LG-built Red Nexus 5 is now up for grabs on the Google Play Store. The new “bright Red” unit carries a similar pricing – the 16GB model is priced at Rs 28,999 and the 32GB model at Rs 32,999. It is also available in white and black colours. Moreover, it comes just in time, ahead of Valentine’s Day.

Amazon’s new Kindle Paperwhite is now available in India on Amazon.in and also at over 250 retail outlets across the country including Croma, Reliance Digital, E-Zone, and Vijay Sales stores. The new Kindle Paperwhite with Wi-Fi only is priced at Rs 10,999 while the Wi-Fi + 3G version is priced at Rs 13,999. It weighs only 206 grams which is lighter than the 222 grams of the previous Paperwhite. Dimensions are identical at 169 x 117 x 9.1 mm, with a 6-inch capacitive touchscreen as was seen with the older model.

Facebook has turned 10 and the celebrations don’t stop. While Zuckerberg & Co are taking a walk down the memory lane, reminiscing about their time at Facebook, the social networking service is letting users relive some of their own memories of their time on the site.

Facebook has released a tool called Look Back that will get to you a personalised collage video of your years on the social networking website. It essentially acts as a thank you card from the company to its users. The video is signed by “Mark and the Facebook team”.

The American media has welcomed the appointment of India-born Satya Nadella as the CEO of Microsoft, noting that the technocrat has an enormous task ahead of him. With Nadella now becoming the most powerful Indian- American chief executive in the IT Sector, the media was quick to reflect on the increasing influence of this small ethnic community in the country.

The king has addressed his kingdom! On the occasion of his creation turning 10, Mark Zuckerberg has put up a status update, talking about the years gone by and what’s left to come for Facebook in the years ahead. “It’s been an amazing journey so far, and I’m so grateful to be a part of it. It’s rare to be able to touch so many people’s lives, and I try to remind myself to make the most of every day and have the biggest impact I can,” started Zuckerberg. He went on to describe an incident where he described to his friends, shortly after starting Facebook, how someone needs to connect the whole world.

Samsung Electronics Co will unveil a new version of its flagship Galaxy S smartphone this month, but expectations are low that features such as a bigger screen will lead to a sharp jump in sales given intensifying competition. Samsung sent out invitations on Tuesday for “Samsung unPacked 5″ event on February 24 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The launch has been brought forward by around three weeks after sales of Samsung’s S4 came in weaker than expected, analysts said.

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 Neo and Note 3 Neo LTE+ are now official. The rumoured budget version of the company’s premium and popular Note 3 is finally unveiled by Samsung Poland, reports GSMArena. Samsung has ensured that users can take advantage of the popular SPen on the budget version too.