Panasonic’s a name the European smartphone market hasn’t heard in quite some time. Hoping to make a comeback, Panasonic has announced their plans for a lightweight, super thin smartphone they’re calling the Eluga. Unveiled at the Panasonic Convention 2012, the Eluga will feature:

NFC is a technology slowly gaining widespread adoption and today LG has announced their plans for developing NFC tags (similar to Sony’s Smart Tags) for activating specific functions on their Optimus LTE Tag smartphone. The Optimus LTE Tag was launched in Korea today and features NFC connectivity along with:

Barnes & Noble isn’t happy that the Kindle Fire has gobbled up tablet market share while their Nook Tablet is the better spec’d tablet. While the Nook Tablet costs only $50 more than the Kindle Fire, it looks like that $50 makes all the difference. To better compete against the Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble has decided to release an 8GB version of their Nook Tablet at the same price as the Kindle Fire. According to an internal Walmart document obtained by The Verge, this 8GB Nook Tablet is set to hit stores this Wednesday.

Earlier in the month, LG teased a largely square device with quite the interesting aspect ratio. We weren’t planning to get any official information on this device until Mobile World Congress but it looks like LG could’t keep this behemoth under wraps. Yesterday LG officially announced their 5″, 4.3 aspect ratio Optimus Vu. We now have a good look at what this device will offer besides its large square frame. You can expect the LG Optimus Vu to be packing:

It appears Rovio is running out of holidays in which to update their popular Angry Birds franchise with as they are now planning to send their angry aviators out into space. That’s right, the final frontier, to boldly go where no bird has gone before. Rovio is teaming up with NASA and National Geographic to release Angry Birds Space and we can only assume it will feature some anti-gravity maneuvers, green alien pigs, and warp drive slingshots.