The University of Leeds is loaning smartphones to all its fourth and fifth year medical students, enabling them to access files and assessments when they're off-campus. It's believed to be the first time a UK medical school has provided undergraduates with this level of mobile phone technology.

Nokia says its N8 smartphone has started shipping, with pre-orders via the company's website and retail shops being delivered first. The Nokia N8 will become more generally available in the next few weeks. It's the company's first device using version 3 of the Symbian operating system and has a 12-megapixel camera.

This week's podcast from The Fonecast takes its regular look at news for the UK mobile phone industry, from the new BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to free Facebook access on Three UK.

There's also an interview with Dave Tharp of Roulette Cricket about his company's success in last week's final of the Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 competition.

Sony Ericsson has launched a 'micro display' accessory called LiveView for its Android smartphones. The 1.3-inch OLED colour display connects via Bluetooth and mirrors certain activities of a compatible mobile phone, such as displaying text messages, calendar updates, showing incoming calls, controlling the music player and offering social networking updates. It means that consumers can use a phone without taking it out of their pocket or handbag.

Research In Motion revealed a new tablet device and associated operating system at its developer conference yesterday. The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet will arrive in the USA early next year (and in other markets from Q2 2011), while the BlackBerry Tablet OS software development kit is planned for release in the next few weeks.