Larry Hagman's J.R. Ewing Will Be Honored with Dallas Funeral Episode















01/08/2013 at 10:15 AM EST







Patrick Duffy and Larry Hagman


Ramey


The late Larry Hagman will not be forgotten when Dallas returns to television on Jan. 28.

Hagman, who shot to fame as the show's star patriarch oil baron, J.R. Ewing, will be honored in upcoming episodes this season, including a funeral, set for the series' March 11 episode, EW.com reports.

The actor passed away on Nov. 23 at 81 from cancer, forcing the show's producers to make significant changes to the storyline, even as they mourned the show's longtime villain who was also a great friend. Extra scenes with J.R. that had previously been cut were put back in for episode 6, said executive producer Cynthia Cidre, who had to explain to viewers as she wrote future episodes why the key character was absent.

The tribute show will include many faces from the original Dallas series, which premiered in 1978, Cidre said. "It will be funny and appropriate to J.R., but it will also be sad because his family loved him," she said. "As do the fans."

His castmates continue to remember him and the indelible mark he left on the show over the decades. Patrick Duffy, who plays J.R.'s brother Bobby, said he and costar Linda Gray hold hands often on set for support and to remember their friend fondly.

"I'll reach over and just hold her hand for a while. As she will for me," Duffy told EW.com. "We just sit and smile and think, 'Gosh, that guy was our friend for 35 years. How lucky are we?'"

Hagman, a Texas native who had been married to his wife Maj Axelsson since 1954, will remain on the production's call sheets for the rest of the year as tribute. His Airstream trailer will also remain on set with a sign that says: "No. 1 is on hold."

Duffy said all of it was fitting: "This is the house that Hagman built."

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down


WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.


Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.


"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.


But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.


Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.


The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.


Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.


Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.


But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.


Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.


Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.


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Wall Street dips as earnings season begins

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed at the open on Tuesday as an earnings season expected to show sluggish corporate growth gets under way.


Profits in the fourth quarter are seen above the previous quarter's lackluster results, but analysts' current estimates are down sharply from where they were in October. Quarterly earnings are expected to grow by 2.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.


If earnings growth appears to be "less bad" than expected that would translate into a near-term uptick in the market, according to Eric Wiegand, senior portfolio manager at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in New York.


"But I think there's still ample areas for concern," he said, listing policy worries in Washington and uneven economic activity as a result of Superstorm Sandy during last quarter.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 40.65 points, or 0.30 percent, to 13,343.64. The S&P 500 <.spx> lost 4.28 points, or 0.29 percent, to 1,457.61. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dropped 5.04 points, or 0.16 percent, to 3,093.78.


German data showed industrial orders fell more than forecast in November due to a sharp drop in demand from abroad, reinforcing concerns that Europe's largest economy may have contracted in the fourth quarter of 2012.


Monsanto Co shares rose 3.2 percent to $99.05 after hitting a more than four-year high at $99.99. The world's largest seed company raised its earnings outlook for fiscal 2013 and posted strong first-quarter results.


Education provider Apollo Group and Dow component Alcoa Inc , the largest U.S. aluminum producer, round out the start of earnings season after the closing bell.


Shares of restaurant-chain operator Yum Brands Inc fell 4.6 percent to $64.78 a day after the KFC parent warned sales in China, its largest market, shrank more than expected in the fourth quarter.


London-traded Vodafone shares rose almost 2 percent after its partner in U.S. joint venture Verizon Wireless said it would be "feasible" to buy out the British group. U.S.-traded Vodafone stock fell 1.5 percent.


Sears Holdings shares fell 1.4 percent to $42.31 a day after the company said its chief executive will step down for family health reasons. The U.S. retailer also reported a 1.8 percent decline in quarter-to-date sales at stores open at least a year.


GameStop shares fell 7.1 percent to $23 after it reported sales for the holiday season and cut its guidance.


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Nick Zieminski)



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Supporters Back Strike at Newspaper in China


James Pomfret/Reuters


Demonstrators gathered outside the headquarters of Southern Weekly newspaper Monday in Guangzhou, China.







BEIJING — Hundreds of people gathered outside the headquarters of a newspaper office in southern China on Monday to show their support for journalists who had declared a strike to protest what they called overbearing censorship by provincial propaganda officials.




The journalists, who work for Southern Weekend, a relatively liberal newspaper that has come under increasing pressure from officials in recent years, also received support on the Internet from celebrities and well-known commentators.


“Hoping for a spring in this harsh winter,” Li Bingbing, an actress, said to her 19 million followers on a microblog account. Yao Chen, an actress with more than 31 million followers, cited a quotation by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Russian Nobel laureate and dissident: “One word of truth outweighs the whole world.”


Many of the people who showed up Monday at the newspaper offices in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, carried banners with slogans and white and yellow chrysanthemums, a flower that symbolizes mourning. One banner read: “Get rid of censorship. The Chinese people want freedom.” Police officers watched the protesters without immediately taking any harsh actions.


The angry journalists at Southern Weekend have been calling for the removal of Tuo Zhen, the top propaganda official in Guangdong, whom the journalists blame for overseeing a change in a New Year’s editorial that ran last week and was supposed to have called for greater respect for rights enshrined in the constitution under the headline “China’s Dream, the Dream of Constitutionalism,” according to the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong. The editorial went through layers of changes and ultimately became one praising the current political system, in which the Communist Party exercises authority over all aspects of governance.


A well-known entrepreneur, Hung Huang, said on her microblog that the actions of a local official had “destroyed, overnight, all the credibility the country’s top leadership had labored to re-establish since the 18th Party Congress,” the November gathering in Beijing that was the climax of the leadership transition.


One journalist for Southern Weekend said Monday afternoon that negotiations between the various parties had been scheduled later in the day, but there were no results from any talks as of Monday evening.


It was unclear how many employees in the newsroom had heeded the calls for a strike. It appeared Sunday that many of Southern Weekend’s reporters had declared themselves on strike. A local journalist who went by the newspaper’s Beijing office on Monday said the building appeared to be open but quiet. One employee told the journalist that the people there were not on strike. Dozens of supporters showed up outside the building at various times, some carrying signs and flowers.


The conflict was exacerbated Sunday night by top editors at the newspaper, who posted a message on the publication’s official microblog saying that the New Year’s editorial had been written with the consent of editors at the newspaper.


According to an account from a newspaper employee posted online on Monday, that statement was made after pressure was exerted on the top editors by Yang Jian, the head of the party committee at Southern Media, the parent company that runs Southern Weekend and other publications. Southern Weekend’s editor in chief, Huang Can, then pressured an employee to give up the official microblog password so the statement could be posted on the microblog.


Neither Mr. Yang nor Mr. Huang could be reached for comment Monday.


Some political analysts have said the conflict raises questions about whether the central government, led by Xi Jinping, the new party chief, will support the idea of a more open media by moving to support the protesting journalists. In his first trip outside Beijing, Mr. Xi traveled to Guangdong and praised the market-oriented economic policies put in place by Deng Xiaoping, the former supreme leader. But more recently, Mr. Xi has said that China must respect its socialist roots.


Resolving the Southern Weekend tensions could also be a test for Hu Chunhua, the new party chief in Guangdong and a potential candidate to succeed Mr. Xi as the leader of China in a decade. Mr. Hu’s predecessor, Wang Yang, was regarded by many Western political analysts as being a “reformer,” but he presided over a tightening of media freedoms in the province and specifically over Southern Media.


On Monday, People’s Daily, the party’s mouthpiece, ran a signed commentary that referred to a recent meeting of propaganda officials in Beijing and said propaganda officials should “follow the rhythm of the times” and help the authorities establish a “pragmatic and open-minded image.” Some people have interpreted that as support for officials in adopting a more enlightened approach in dealing with the news media.


But Global Times, a populist newspaper, ran a scathing editorial that said Southern Weekend was merely a newspaper and should not challenge the system.


“Even in the West, mainstream media would not choose to openly pick a fight with the government,” the editorial said. Xinhua, the state news agency, published the editorial online.


Jonathan Ansfield contributed reporting. Mia Li and Shi Da and contributed research.



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Kuwaiti journalist jailed for Twitter ‘insults’






KUWAIT CITY (AP) — A Kuwait newspaper says an online journalist has been sentenced to two years in prison for posts deemed “insulting” to the Gulf nation’s ruler — the second such ruling this week.


The decision reflects a widening social media crackdown across the Gulf Arab states to quell perceived political dissent.






Kuwait’s pro-government Al Watan newspaper reported Monday that Ayyad al-Harbi, a journalist at news website Sabr, was charged with posting Twitter messages considered offensive to the nation’s Western-allied emir. No other details were given.


Kuwait, which hosts thousands of U.S. troops, has been gripped by months of political unrest led by anti-government groups, including Islamist factions.


On Sunday, Kuwaiti media said a social media activist also has received a two-year prison term for Twitter posts that allegedly insulted the emir.


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Bethenny Frankel Steps Out After Filing For Divorce















01/07/2013 at 10:50 AM EST



It's business as usual for Bethenny Frankel.

After filing for divorce from husband Jason Hoppy a few days earlier, the Skinnygirl mogul took her beloved dog, Cookie, for a walk in New York's Tribeca neighborhood on Sunday.

Bundled up in a down jacket and boots, Frankel, 42, shielded her face with sunglasses as she strolled down the street with her pup trailing behind her.

Frankel first announced the couple's separation via a statement on Dec. 23. "It brings me great sadness to say that Jason and I are separating. This was an extremely difficult decision that as a woman and a mother, I have to accept as the best choice for our family," she said at the time.

The couple – who married after a whirlwind courtship and surprise pregnancy in 2010 – are parents to Bryn, 2½.

While Frankel and Hoppy's relationship played out in front of the cameras on Bethenny Getting Married and Bethenny Ever After, last year Frankel took time off from her life in the spotlight to focus on her marriage.

"Bethenny is devastated," a friend of Frankel's told PEOPLE earlier this month.

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Your medical chart could include exercise minutes


CHICAGO (AP) — Roll up a sleeve for the blood pressure cuff. Stick out a wrist for the pulse-taking. Lift your tongue for the thermometer. Report how many minutes you are active or getting exercise.


Wait, what?


If the last item isn't part of the usual drill at your doctor's office, a movement is afoot to change that. One recent national survey indicated only a third of Americans said their doctors asked about or prescribed physical activity.


Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation's largest nonprofit health insurance plans, made a big push a few years ago to get its southern California doctors to ask patients about exercise. Since then, Kaiser has expanded the program across California and to several other states. Now almost 9 million patients are asked at every visit, and some other medical systems are doing it, too.


Here's how it works: During any routine check of vital signs, a nurse or medical assistant asks how many days a week the patient exercises and for how long. The number of minutes per week is posted along with other vitals at the top the medical chart. So it's among the first things the doctor sees.


"All we ask our physicians to do is to make a comment on it, like, 'Hey, good job,' or 'I noticed today that your blood pressure is too high and you're not doing any exercise. There's a connection there. We really need to start you walking 30 minutes a day,'" said Dr. Robert Sallis, a Kaiser family doctor. He hatched the vital sign idea as part of a larger initiative by doctors groups.


He said Kaiser doctors generally prescribe exercise first, instead of medication, and for many patients who follow through that's often all it takes.


It's a challenge to make progress. A study looking at the first year of Kaiser's effort showed more than a third of patients said they never exercise.


Sallis said some patients may not be aware that research shows physical inactivity is riskier than high blood pressure, obesity and other health risks people know they should avoid. As recently as November a government-led study concluded that people who routinely exercise live longer than others, even if they're overweight.


Zendi Solano, who works for Kaiser as a research assistant in Pasadena, Calif., says she always knew exercise was a good thing. But until about a year ago, when her Kaiser doctor started routinely measuring it, she "really didn't take it seriously."


She was obese, and in a family of diabetics, had elevated blood sugar. She sometimes did push-ups and other strength training but not anything very sustained or strenuous.


Solano, 34, decided to take up running and after a couple of months she was doing three miles. Then she began training for a half marathon — and ran that 13-mile race in May in less than three hours. She formed a running club with co-workers and now runs several miles a week. She also started eating smaller portions and buying more fruits and vegetables.


She is still overweight but has lost 30 pounds and her blood sugar is normal.


Her doctor praised the improvement at her last physical in June and Solano says the routine exercise checks are "a great reminder."


Kaiser began the program about three years ago after 2008 government guidelines recommended at least 2 1/2 hours of moderately vigorous exercise each week. That includes brisk walking, cycling, lawn-mowing — anything that gets you breathing a little harder than normal for at least 10 minutes at a time.


A recently published study of nearly 2 million people in Kaiser's southern California network found that less than a third met physical activity guidelines during the program's first year ending in March 2011. That's worse than results from national studies. But promoters of the vital signs effort think Kaiser's numbers are more realistic because people are more likely to tell their own doctors the truth.


Dr. Elizabeth Joy of Salt Lake City has created a nearly identical program and she expects 300 physicians in her Intermountain Healthcare network to be involved early this year.


"There are some real opportunities there to kind of shift patients' expectations about the value of physical activity on health," Joy said.


NorthShore University HealthSystem in Chicago's northern suburbs plans to start an exercise vital sign program this month, eventually involving about 200 primary care doctors.


Dr. Carrie Jaworski, a NorthShore family and sports medicine specialist, already asks patients about exercise. She said some of her diabetic patients have been able to cut back on their medicines after getting active.


Dr. William Dietz, an obesity expert who retired last year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said measuring a patient's exercise regardless of method is essential, but that "naming it as a vital sign kind of elevates it."


Figuring out how to get people to be more active is the important next step, he said, and could have a big effect in reducing medical costs.


___


Online:


Exercise: http://1.usa.gov/b6AkMa


___


AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner


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Wall Street falls after five-year high, earnings in focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Monday as traders cashed in recent gains that lifted the S&P 500 to a five-year high on Friday and awaited Tuesday's start of the fourth-quarter earnings season.


Last week was the best for U.S. stocks in more than a year as a budget deal and economic data boosted investor confidence.


Investors will likely turn their attention to the fourth-quarter earnings season that kicks off this week. Earnings are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results and analysts' current estimates are down sharply from what they were in October.


"We have a cautious market entering fourth-quarter earnings season," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York. "I think it's going to be a disappointing one this time around."


Financial shares will be in focus a day after global regulators known as the Basel Committee gave banks four more years and greater flexibility to build up cash buffers, scaling back moves that aimed to help prevent another financial crisis.


"Basel giving banks four more years to get their act together will be good" for stocks, Cardillo said.


Bank of America shares rose 0.5 percent to $12.17 after hitting their highest since May 2011 as it reached a settlement with Fannie Mae worth roughly $11.6 billion to resolve agency mortgage repurchase claims.


The bank also entered into agreements with Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Walter Investment Management to sell about $306 billion of residential mortgage servicing rights.


Nationstar rose 16.8 percent to $38.80 and Walter Investment added 7 percent to $47.13.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 63.59 points, or 0.47 percent, to 13,371.62. The S&P 500 <.spx> dropped 6.53 points, or 0.45 percent, to 1,459.94. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> lost 12.56 points, or 0.41 percent, to 3,089.09.


Walt Disney Co started an internal cost cutting review several weeks ago that may include layoffs at its studio and other units, three people with knowledge of the effort told Reuters. Disney shares fell 1.4 percent to $51.46.


Video-streaming service Netflix Inc shares gained 4 percent to $99.78 after it said it will carry previous seasons of some popular shows produced by Time Warner's Warner Bros Television.


Amazon.com shares hit their highest price ever at $269.22 after Morgan Stanley raised its rating on the stock. Shares were up 3.6 percent at $268.50.


Roche's chairman was quoted as saying the Swiss pharmaceutical group is no longer considering a bid for the U.S. gene-sequencing company Illumina . Illumina shares were off 8 percent at $50.20.


Major U.S. technology companies could miss estimates for fourth-quarter earnings as budget worries likely led some corporate clients to tighten their belts last month.


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



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Ex-Officer Is First From C.I.A. to Face Prison for a Leak


Christaan Felber for The New York Times


John Kiriakou with his daughter Kate at home in Arlington, Va., last month. He has struggled with how to explain to his children that he will be going away.







WASHINGTON — Looking back, John C. Kiriakou admits he should have known better. But when the F.B.I. called him a year ago and invited him to stop by and “help us with a case,” he did not hesitate.





Timeline


Leak-Related Cases Prosecuted During the Obama Administration







Christaan Felber for The New York Times

Mr. Kiriakou is scheduled to be sentenced to 30 months in prison as part of a plea deal.






In his years as a C.I.A. operative, after all, Mr. Kiriakou had worked closely with F.B.I. agents overseas. Just months earlier, he had reported to the bureau a recruiting attempt by someone he believed to be an Asian spy.


“Anything for the F.B.I.,” Mr. Kiriakou replied.


Only an hour into what began as a relaxed chat with the two agents — the younger one who traded Pittsburgh Steelers talk with him and the senior investigator with the droopy eye — did he begin to realize just who was the target of their investigation.


Finally, the older agent leaned in close and said, by Mr. Kiriakou’s recollection, “In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that right now we’re executing a search warrant at your house and seizing your electronic devices.”


On Jan. 25, Mr. Kiriakou is scheduled to be sentenced to 30 months in prison as part of a plea deal in which he admitted violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act by e-mailing the name of a covert C.I.A. officer to a freelance reporter, who did not publish it. The law was passed in 1982, aimed at radical publications that deliberately sought to out undercover agents, exposing their secret work and endangering their lives.


In more than six decades of fraught interaction between the agency and the news media, John Kiriakou is the first current or former C.I.A. officer to be convicted of disclosing classified information to a reporter.


Mr. Kiriakou, 48, earned numerous commendations in nearly 15 years at the C.I.A., some of which were spent undercover overseas chasing Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. He led the team in 2002 that found Abu Zubaydah, a terrorist logistics specialist for Al Qaeda, and other militants whose capture in Pakistan was hailed as a notable victory after the Sept. 11 attacks.


He got mixed reviews at the agency, which he left in 2004 for a consulting job. Some praised his skills, first as an analyst and then as an overseas operative; others considered him a loose cannon.


Mr. Kiriakou first stumbled into the public limelight by speaking out about waterboarding on television in 2007, quickly becoming a source for national security journalists, including this reporter, who turned up in Mr. Kiriakou’s indictment last year as Journalist B. When he gave the covert officer’s name to the freelancer, he said, he was simply trying to help a writer find a potential source and had no intention or expectation that the name would ever become public. In fact, it did not surface publicly until long after Mr. Kiriakou was charged.


He is remorseful, up to a point. “I should never have provided the name,” he said on Friday in the latest of a series of interviews. “I regret doing it, and I never will do it again.”


At the same time, he argues, with the backing of some former agency colleagues, that the case — one of an unprecedented string of six prosecutions under President Obama for leaking information to the news media — was unfair and ill-advised as public policy.


His supporters are an unlikely collection of old friends, former spies, left-leaning critics of the government and conservative Christian opponents of torture. Oliver Stone sent a message of encouragement, as did several professors at Liberty University, where Mr. Kiriakou has taught. They view the case as an outrage against a man who risked his life to defend the country.


Whatever his loquaciousness with journalists, they say, he neither intended to damage national security nor did so. Some see a particular injustice in the impending imprisonment of Mr. Kiriakou, who in his first 2007 appearance on ABC News defended the agency’s resort to desperate measures but also said that he had come to believe that waterboarding was torture and should no longer be used in American interrogations.


Bruce Riedel, a retired veteran C.I.A. officer who led an Afghan war review for Mr. Obama and turned down an offer to be considered for C.I.A. director in 2009, said Mr. Kiriakou, who worked for him in the 1990s, was “an exceptionally good intelligence officer” who did not deserve to go to prison.


This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 5, 2013

A summary that appeared with an earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of the former C.I.A. operative. He is John C. Kiriakou, not Kiriako.



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RIM unveils a new BlackBerry phone! (But it’s only a Curve for T-Mobile running BlackBerry 7)






Research In Motion (RIMM) on Thursday took the wraps off a brand new BlackBerry smartphone — but it’s not the kind of smartphone BlackBerry fans have been waiting more than a year for. Instead, it’s a low-end BlackBerry Curve 9315 that will launch later this month on T-Mobile. The phone features the BlackBerry 7.1 operating system, a 3.2-megapixel camera, microSD memory expansion and a full QWERTY keyboard, and it will launch on January 23rd… just seven days before RIM unveils its first BlackBerry 10 phones. Pre-sales for the Curve 9315 begin on January 16th and the phone will cost $ 49.99 out of pocket plus a $ 10 payment each month as part of Equipment Installment Plan. T-Mobile’s full press release follows below.


[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]







BlackBerry Curve 9315 Smartphone Introduced By T-Mobile and RIM


[More from BGR: RIM teases BlackBerry 10 launch with image of first BB10 smartphone]


T-Mobile’s most affordable BlackBerry smartphone provides productivity tools and features to keep customers connected


BELLEVUE, Wash. and WATERLOO, ON – Jan. 3, 2013 – T-Mobile USA, Inc. and Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced the most affordable BlackBerry® smartphone on T-Mobile’s nationwide network – the BlackBerry® Curve 9315. Powered by the BlackBerry® 7.1 operating system with 3G connectivity, the sleek new smartphone is easy-to-use and provides tools that enable customers to stay connected to the people and information that matter most.


“At T-Mobile, our goal is to delight customers. The new BlackBerry Curve 9315 will delight customers with unprecedented value while also allowing them to combine their mobile business and personal use in one great device,” said Brad Duea, senior vice president of product management at T-Mobile. “The Curve 9315 is the most affordable BlackBerry smartphone on our nationwide network and provides our customers with a wide variety of productivity and social features to keep them connected and make their mobile lives easier.”


“We’re pleased to work with T-Mobile to bring the BlackBerry Curve 9315 to customers,” said Richard Piasentin, managing director for the U.S. at Research In Motion. “The Curve 9315 is designed to make it incredibly easy to stay connected with friends, family and coworkers and will be popular with customers upgrading to a smartphone for the first time, as well as existing Curve customers looking for a step up in speed and functionality.”


Combining an intuitive interface with a QWERTY keyboard, the BlackBerry Curve 9315 features built-in Wi-Fi® connectivity for voice and data, enabling customers to access the information they need when and where they need it, and Wi-Fi calling, allowing calls and messages over an available Wi-Fi network. With a dedicated BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) key, preloaded apps for Facebook® and Twitter® and the Social Feeds 2.0 app, customers can easily interact with their friends, coworkers and social networks whether it’s instant messaging, posting or tweeting.


The new BlackBerry Curve 9315 offers a 3.2-megapixel camera with LED flash and digital zoom as well as video recording capabilities. Customers also have the ability to geo-tag the location of their pictures by utilizing the smartphone’s built-in GPS. In addition, the smartphone features a microSD card slot for up to 32GB of additional media storage and a built-in FM radio letting customers tune in to local FM stations. With the BlackBerry App World™ storefront, customers have exclusive access to a wide range of apps, allowing them to enhance their smartphone experience with entertainment, personalization and productivity apps of their choosing.


The BlackBerry Curve 9315 will be available in an exclusive pre-sale for T-Mobile business customers beginning January 16 and is expected to be available in T-Mobile retail stores, via http://www.T-Mobile.com, and with select dealers and national retailers beginning January 23, 2013. For well-qualified customers, the Curve 9315 will require a $ 49.99 out-of-pocket down payment and 20 equal monthly payments of $ 10 per month via T-Mobile’s Equipment Installment Plan (EIP)1, with a two-year service agreement and qualifying T-Mobile Value voice and data plan. Customers may also purchase the Curve 9315 for $ 49.99 after a $ 50 mail-in rebate card, with a two-year service agreement and qualifying T-Mobile Classic voice and data plan.2



This article was originally published by BGR


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News




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