Yahoo! Phone To Hit Japan

Japan's third biggest mobile operator, SoftBank has announced a Android powered smartphone, the Yahoo! phone. this is a strange move considering Google is Yahoo's biggest rival. This development is all the more confounding because the latter has a close relationship with Google's nemesis, Microsoft. Let's not forget the fact that Bing also powers Yahoo's search engine.

The Android powered Yahoo! phone will feature a 4" LCD screen, 8 megapixel camera, Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi, and microSD card slot. The Yahoo! Phone will run Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), and will feature a built-in digital TV tuner.

The phone is manufactured by Sharp, which is then rebranded as a Yahoo! Phone. To justify its name, the device will ship with a bunch of country specific Yahoo! Mobile applications. The smartphone is expected to be available by the end of next month.