Alongside the other two ‘hardware’ additions to the Sony Xperia Smart Extras range, Sony have also announced the arrival of exciting new product – Xperia SmartTags into the Smart Extras family.

SmartTags are basically tags that use NFC (near field communication) technology to communicate with any Android smartphone capable of using NFC. The Xperia SmartTags can be configured to change the profile on a mobile handset when the phone touches the tag. As an example, you could take one tag and configure it so that when you swipe it with your phone, the tag changes the phone profile to turn on WiFi, turn the phone onto silent, open an app and so on.

More new products from Sony have been announced, in the form of three ‘smart’ accessories that will not only be compatible with the new Xperia NXT range of handsets but, with any Android smartphone with bluetooth or NFC support enabled.

A few months ago Sega announced that they would be releasing Sonic CD onto home consoles, the Xbox 360 and PS3. They also revealed that they would release the game onto the Android Market, along with iTunes at a later date. One thing that many queried at the time was whether the game would make use of Sony Ericsson Xperia Play’s gamepad. At the time, Sega said it wouldn’t at launch but, may get Xperia Play gamepad support in the future.

Sony Ericsson have declared themselves as the first mobile phone manufacturer to include support for WebGL technology on their handsets. WebGL is a technology that allows 3D graphic rendering to be viewed on browsers without the need for additional plugins and although the technology has been around for a little while now, Sony Ericsson have jumped in with open arms to integrate WebGL support into it’s range of 2011 Xperia handsets.

Currently, if you wish to purchase one of the great titles from Gameloft such as BackStab, you have to buy the game directly through the Gameloft website from the browser on your Xperia Play. In the future however, Gameloft titles that are Xperia Play optimized will be added to the Android Market.