BlackBerry has announced a brand new smartphone: the BlackBerry Passport.

It’s equipped with a square screen and has a physical QWERTY keyboard. Each key has a touch-sensitive surface, which means the keyboard can also be used in a similar way to a trackpad.

This week's podcast begins with the latest news from Phones 4u, where hundreds of jobs have been saved but there are a large number of redundancies as well.

Iain, James and Mark then talk about new products from Amazon, BlackBerry and Panasonic, mobile payment innovation from Indonesia and the UK, the acquisition of IoT specialist Neul and Apple's updated privacy policy.

The 5-TILES touchscreen keyboard has been released as a beta version by ETAOI Systems today.

As the name suggests, it uses just five keyboard tiles to type the alphabet rather than 26. This makes it particularly well-suited to devices with small screens, such as smart watches, as well as conventional smartphones.

Google has committed to refunding at least $19 million (£11.8 million) in in-app charges raised by children using applications on Android devices.

The complaint was raised by the US Federal Trade Commission earlier this year, claiming that children using mobile apps downloaded from the Google Play store had bought additional products and services without the authorisation of the account holder.

Mark Bridge writes:

We’re delighted to be a media partner to Apps World 2014. This year Apps World has outgrown its previous home and is moving to ExCeL London, alongside the River Thames. There’ll be over 350 exhibitors and even more workshops than before, with a number of free conference sessions alongside premium options.