Key Operator: The BlackBerry Key 2 review

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

BlackBerry Mobile, which is owned by TCL Communications, has proven that there's a niche of smartphone users who want keyboards. More importantly, it shows that there is still innovation and evolution in keyboard-focused devices.

The BlackBerry KEY2, takes the ideas and design of the BlackBerry KEYOne and pushes them forward in a sleeker, more powerful and upgraded QWERTY keyboard smartphone.

Tapping into its heritage, BlackBerry has used the Bold 9600’s keyboard as the inspiration for the KEY2. Which now has a larger and even more responsive QWERTY keyboard. All the tricks and features are present, including the ability to use the keyboard as a trackpad and the flick-typing functionality for predictive text completion.

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Microsoft announces Independence Pack DLC for ‘State of Decay 2’

With State of Decay 2 hitting an important milestone, Microsoft announced that Undead Labs has released a new Independence Pack DLC for US$4.99 or free if you get the State of Decay 2: Ultimate Edition for US$49.99. Xbox Game Pass members get a 10 percent discount on the Independence Pack. The DLC introduces new weapons, vehicles, supplies, and fireworks and is available for both Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs. You can see the full list of new items under the cut:

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Casting has begun for Netflix’s ‘The Witcher’ series

If you’ve been waiting for news on The Witcher series coming to Netflix, we have some bits of info for you. The show, as you may know, will be based on the novels that inspired the CD Projekt RED’s The Witcher. Its author Andrzej Sapkowski will be onboard as a creative so we know that it will try to be as authentic as it can be. The show’s writer Lauren S. Hissrich has shared on her Twitter where they are with the project so far. The pilot episode’s script is drafted up and now they’re going into casting. And she’s gone into great detail about this. We’ll keep it under the cut if you want to read. So far we don’t know when the series will air but with this going full steam ahead we won’t be surprised if this happens soon.

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Google Chromecast and Home goes down due to backend issues

If your Google Chromecast or Google Home is fritzing, you’re not alone. A backend systems issue caused the outage for the two products for users from different parts of the world. As of 7:00 p.m. ET, TechCrunch reports that Google is working on the fix to the issue and are working to make sure this doesn’t happen in the future.

Here’s Google’s official statement on the issue as well as the fix it offers in the meantime as they work to bring everything back to normal: “We’ve identified a fix for the issue impacting Google Home and Chromecast users and it will be automatically rolled out over the next 6 hours. If you would like an immediate fix please follow the directions to reboot your device. If you’re still experiencing an issue after rebooting, contact us at Google Home Support. We are really sorry for the inconvenience and are taking steps to prevent this issue from happening in the future.”