BlackBerry reported better-than-expected adjusted earnings for the sixth straight quarter, as the smartphone pioneer’s shift to the higher-margin software business paid off, sending shares soaring more than 15 percent. Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry has focused on building a robust software business after scrapping production of its once-iconic smartphones, which lost favor with the arrival of sleek and fully-touchscreen handsets. The company outsourced the development of its smartphones las

That profit gain came despite revenue falling last year by 2.8 percent, the first decline since the company listed shares on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1991, according to company information. For 2016 as a whole, Foxconn’s net profit totalled T$148.7 billion, up 1.2 percent from 2015, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Friday. Foxconn did not break out its fourth quarter figures and did not elaborate on its results. Foxconn’s quarterly net profits had been expected to

Because a platform like YouTube wrongly exploits legal loopholes to pay creators at rates well below the true value of music while other digital services — including many new and small innovators — cannot. But this argument confuses two different services: music subscriptions that cost $10 a month versus ad-supported music videos. Like radio, YouTube generates the vast majority of our revenue from advertising. Unlike radio, however, we pay the majority of the ad revenue that music earns to the i

If you’re constantly finding yourself with a dead iPhone before the end of the day, we have a few tricks that’ll make sure that never happens again. Before we get started, though, let’s debunk an old tip that you might still be following, and something that may even hurt your battery life. It’s OK to leave some applications open, so stop worrying about closing them all. In fact, Apple said last year that sometimes closing and reopening apps later can end up sucking even more battery life. These

To skeptical web users, two votes on Capitol Hill to scrap the FCC’s online privacy rules amount to a major handoff of consumers’ most sensitive personal information to the likes of AT&T, Comcast, Charter and Verizon. In a blog post, Gerard Lewis, the chief privacy officer for Comcast, stressed on Friday: “We do not sell our broadband customers’ individual web browsing history. We did not do it before the FCC’s rules were adopted, and we have no plans to do so.” It called the vote in the House a

Google and Facebook must take responsibility and remove extremist content on their platforms, WPP CEO Martin Sorrell told CNBC on Friday, but he added that advertisers boycotting video service YouTube “doesn’t make sense”. AT&T, General Motors and Johnson & Johnson are among the companies who have suspended ads on YouTube. Sorrell said that there “may be an argument” for temporarily suspending ads on YouTube, but a permanent boycott wasn’t a good move. “Boycotting what is one of the most powerfu

In addition to great salaries, tech employees expect perks at their jobs — especially in competitive areas with a lot of start-ups. For virtual reality media company Upload in Los Angeles, it meant supporting a pricey Kombucha habit until it became untenable. Perhaps most important for a company owned by the music industry: All employees get free concert tickets. Employee training platform Grovo’s New York offices gets manicures on Friday, a gym and an in-house shoe shiner. “We actually go outsi

Samsung’s Galaxy S8 isn’t even out yet but there’s a “feature” that’s not as secure as you might think. A YouTube channel named iDeviceHelp tried testing the Galaxy S8’s advertised face recognition software. It’s just one of a few options Samsung will employ to let users unlock their devices. A video demonstration shows the Galaxy S8’s facial recognition software being fooled by an image of the phone’s owner. With one phone held up to the facial scanner with an image of the owner on the display,

Trevor MacKenzie, 31, crafted a “Legend of Zelda” arcade machine housed in a wine barrel he got off of Craigslist. The wine barrel arcade console can also run other retro games, like Megaman X. MacKenzie got idea from an Arcade Controls forum user who created a similar barrel arcade machine to house his “Barrel of Kong” Donkey Kong game. He told CNBC the project took him three weeks for about 20 hours, which he completed after work in his backyard. Admittedly, MacKenzie is a union carpenter, so

Snap launched a new search function Friday in an effort to make all the content created by its users far more accessible. The company is using advanced machine learning to evaluate caption text, time and visual elements, to create new stories out of those Snaps. “We’ve built a new way to understand what’s happening in Snaps that are submitted to Our Story, and to create new Stories using advanced machine learning. While there’s no mention of advertising, introducing search clearly opens up a who

After a difficult year for unicorns last year, 2017 is off to a pretty good start for some of the hottest names in this space. Airbnb just closed a $1 billion funding round; WeWork is reportedly raising $3 billion and Uber partner and rival, Didi Chuxing, is said to be considering a new funding round. And then, of course, there was one of the largest unicorn exits in a long time — Snap’s IPO. But what about the rest? Using data from PitchBook, we looked at how the year is shaping up so far for s

Grubhub and Seamless’ Delivery X service uses parkour runners, skateboarders and BMX riders to get you your food faster than ever. CheggEducation technology company has released a new energy drink called “Chugg.” Powered by “a crap ton of caffeine” and “ground up unicorn horns,” alleged testimonials claim you can down this drink, not sleep for 72 hours and write an entire thesis. HondaOk, Honda isn’t a tech company, but this is pretty good. Instead of your standard honk, “Honda Horn Emojis” will

Snapchat just made its Stories feature, which lets you check out professional curated Snaps from around the globe, a heck of a lot more fun. Instead of blindly opening Snapchat and just poking around a few Stories, you can now search through more than a million of them. Maybe someone is posting to Snapchat from a tavern down the road, for example, or from the celebration at the end of a nail-biter basketball game. Or, maybe it’s a long day and all you want to do is sit back on the couch and brow

Palmer Luckey’s departure Thursday from Facebook and Oculus, the virtual reality company he co-founded in 2012, was sudden, but not entirely unexpected. But Luckey was one of the earliest cheerleaders of virtual reality — and many credit him with revitalizing interest in a technological field that many considered dead. There are plenty of companies moving into virtual reality in the coming years. We’re thankful for everything he did for Oculus and VR, and we wish him all the best.” And, sometime

Technology firm Cloudera filed for its public offering on Friday amid a revival in the IPO market. The company is growing its sales and shrinking its losses, though it still lost $187.32 million last year amid “significant investments in research and development” and outlays for sales and marketing. Cloudera specializes in one of the hottest fields for enterprise technology: Data science. Cloudera said the company intends to continue to expand internationally after the IPO, and will use the proc

Udacity, an online platform that features classes on technology subjects that lead to the awarding of “nano degrees,” is trying to jump-start the development of self-driving cars. The company has announced the competition in conjunction with Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride-sharing giant that has big ambitions for international expansion. Didi, which handles more than 20 million rides per day and bought out Uber’s operations in China, is also making aggressive inroads into cultivating driverless c

Owlet wants new parents to get some sleep with its high-tech baby accessory. The Utah based company is out with a new and improved smart sock for babies that tracks their heart rate and oxygen levels while they sleep. The gadget’s defining feature—a sensor placement within the sock—has been improved, and there is now a smartphone application that logs and tracks the data collected. Should the child’s oxygen level or heart rate exceed an acceptable range, the base monitor sounds an alarm. “We’re

Who would have thought one friendly neighborhood Spider-Man could wallop the entire Justice League? This week saw new movie trailers drop for “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “Justice League,” two of the most hotly anticipated movies of 2017 in a box-office year chock full of superheroes. “Justice League” mustered just 4,373 new followers for a comparatively modest spike of nearly 400 percent. The “Justice League” trailer contains glimmers of humor between its cast, but much of its run-time is spent

Gold may be struggling to return to its year to date highs, but one trader says it’s time for investors to get back into the once-hot trade. On Friday, the yellow metal traded at its lowest level in more than a week, and remains below its 2016 high. “It’s not just U.S. growth, it’s Fed policy, it’s U.S. fiscal policy, it’s European elections,” he said this week on CNBC’s “Futures Now.” “I think the Fed right now is still seeing the economic and policy as glass half full without any real evidence

[The stream is slated to start at 11 a.m., ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.] Attorney General Jeff Sessions visits St. Louis to speak with federal, state, and local law enforcement about efforts to combat violent crime.