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BlackBerry Curve 9320 Leaked by T-Mobile U.K.

RIM’s latest attempt to keep its sinking ship above water appears to be a new addition to its low-end BlackBerry range. The Curve 9320 is due for release next month, according to T-Mobile U.K., which appears to have leaked the device accidentally with no official announcement from RIM.

As you’d expect, the Curve 9320 sports that trademark BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard, alongside a touch-sensitive optical trackpad and a 3.2-megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom. It’s expected to enter the Curve lineup priced below the Curve 9360, so a touchscreen looks unlikely.

According to TechRadar, the device will also feature a dedicated BlackBerry Messenger key, the BlackBerry 7.1 operating system, and a new radio app that has reportedly been laying dormant in a number of BlackBerry devices for years. The report suggests that the device will be aimed at younger users hoping to secure a BlackBerry with an affordable price tag.

T-Mobile leaked the device via its ‘Coming Soon’ page earlier today — alongside the Sony Xperia U — but promptly removed the listing a short while later. Now that the word is out, you can expect to hear official details from RIM sometime soon.

Remember Me Launches This Week, Last Batch of Screenshots

 

June is here! Summer is a time for minor hits and hidden gems to slowly leak out from the publishers before the busy holiday season. Capcom is getting the party started with its promising new franchise, Remember Me.

Dontnod Entertainment’s cyberpunk action game is launching in both Europe and America this week. Strangely enough, Capcom has not announced a release date on its home turf in Japan. A change in tactics, maybe?

Regardless, Capcom has released a final batch of screenshot to get games pumped. Rather than the typical fighting scenes and free-running platform sections, these atmospheric shots serve more to develop the world and its environment.

Neo-Paris is a dark and mechanical city. Wires and jagged buildings paint the skyline, and broken  platforms and garbage litter the streets. The neon-red lights also create a horrible mood of foreboding. This is not the artistic Paris we have known for years. This is not a place I want to vacation too.

Remember Me is launching tomorrow on June 4th for the PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360.

Call me crazy, but in recent years, these experimental and smaller games have been more exciting than the AAA blockbusters which line-up for Christmas. With games like Remember Me,The Last of Us, Killer is Dead, and Dragon’s Crown, expect a busy three months.

How a small newspaper used iPads to bend the rules of reporting

With the rapid migration of news and media onto the mobile platform, newspaper editors are finding all sorts of ways to keep up with the changeover and stay ahead of the trends. That’s why Randy Parker, managing editor of the York Daily Record put a tablet or smartphone into the hands of its top reporters. Further, as Parker explained at theAmerica East 2013 newspaper conference in Hershey, Pa. they take those tablets on the road and into the community to experiment with news ways to boost reader engagement.

Parker explained that several years ago his newspaper hired Lauren Boyer for a new position to cover business news focusing on consumer issues, but he didn’t want her to stay in the office and instead tasked her with finding new ways to tell stories for the paper. York Daily Record gave Boyer the first iPad it bought, and she used it to shoot videos and tweet. Today she still finds new apps and tools to download and use on a weekly basis.

“It was one of the best investments I could have ever made because it absolutely energized her, and it accelerated her creative thinking,” Parker said. “I noticed every time I look over at her desk, she’s not there.”

Boyer’s tactics integrated social media use and traditional reporting – allowing her to venture into the community, meet new people and still stay connected with the newsroom. Often Boyer would send out a tweet that she was going to be at a particular location and invite people to stop by and tell her what she should be covering. Parker explained that a local public relations representative from Harley Davidson who was hard to get a hold of found her that way one day and chatted with her for around 45 minutes.

The second person on staff at the York Daily Record to receive an iPad was the paper’s senior reporter who covered the courts. The judge let the reporter use the iPad in the courtroom because it doesn’t break any of the court’s rules.

“[The judge] said, ‘Well, there’s no cellphones and no laptops, but this isn’t a cellphone, and this isn’t a laptop, so, yeah, I guess you can use that in the courtroom,’” Parker said. “This was a new judge. I think he was looking to bend the rules to new technology.”

The court reporter uses Scribble Live, which lets him live-blog the proceedings and sends his updates to Twitter.

Parker said he has gradually rolled out iPads to 14 staff members. In addition, the paper has purchased six Nexus 7-inch tablets for photographers, and he predicts the paper will continue to purchase Nexus tablets instead of iPads because they’re less glitchy, fit into “boy pockets,” and they are “dirt cheap.”

The paper has tried Kindle Fires and Windows Surface tablets, but they never caught on.

York Daily Record also created a “News Vroom,” an old newspaper delivery van that goes to sporting and other local events from time to time. Workers erect tents around the van that house six laptops, six smartphones, six iPads, and a WiFi router that allows connection to up to 21 devices. The paper uses the mobile connection to showcase the newspaper’s apps at events that draw crowds: its e-edition for iPad, its iPad app designed to focus on breaking news, photo streams, and methods for sharing information like Little League game scores.

Next up for the York paper: developing a pre-fall high school football tablet e-zine and a commemorative Gettysburg anniversary edition for tablet

Sony Xperia P’s Android Ice Cream Sandwich Update Rolling Out Now

Staying true to the promise it made earlier this month, Sony is now rolling out the Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade for the Xperia P. The update brings all the benefits of Android 4.0 to the mid-range handset, including a new task switcher, resizable widgets, and updates to Google’s core applications, including Gmail, Calendar, and more.

Sony has also made improvements to its own application suite, The Verge reports. The Music app is now called Walkman after Sony’s famous personal music players, and it — along with the Movies and Gallery apps — have receiving visual improvements and more functionality.

One of the biggest “hidden” changes is the new “extended standby mode,” which Sony insists can improve the Xperia P’s battery life four-fold.

The ICS update begins its rollout today, before ”continuing over the next few weeks in markets globally.” So don’t worry if you still haven’t received yours by the weekend.

As usual, you’ll get a notification to let you know when the update’s available to download, but if you’d like to check manually, you can do so via your handset’s Settings menu. The software will be an over-their-air update, but Sony warns that some handsets may need to be connected to a Mac or PC to be upgraded.