Bad news for BlackBerry

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It might be time to say goodbye, again, to BlackBerry phones. Chinese tech company TCL, which runs BlackBerry Mobile, said it's closing shop on the line of phones. A tweet from the BlackBerry Mobile Twitter account announced TCL will cease selling BlackBerry phones as of Aug. 31. It will continue to support its device until August 2022. TCL made a deal to license Blackberry phones in December 2016f, and its first phone in the line, the BlackBerry KeyOne, debuted in 2017. A much-improved follow-up, the BlackBerry Key2, came out the following year. Last year, BlackBerry Mobile paused the release of the Key3 but did suggest there could possibly be a 5G device and a folding phone for 2020.


Google experiences dip in ad revenue

Google's parent company has published details of its YouTube and cloud business for the first time, as the firm's advertising business continues to slow. YouTube's ad sales in the last three months of 2019 rose 31% year-on-year to $4.7bn, Alphabet said. Overall Alphabet revenue increased by 17% year-on-year to $46bn - the slowest rate in more than two years. While YouTube is rapidly growing, Alphabet's cloud business lags rivals. For years the business did not publish revenue figures for its various divisions, to the concern of investors and regulators. When Sundar Pichai took over as Alphabet chief executive last year the policy changed, although it is still not releasing profit figures for individual units.


Jeep: Electric bikes in the works?

It's not often we get actual, useful news in a Super Bowl ad, but Jeep managed to pull it off this year. The off-road vehicle manufacturer released a Super Bowl ad over the weekend with a ton to chew on. It's a follow-up to 1993's Groundhog Day that actually managed to get Bill Murray to show up, which is an achievement in and of itself. While it's mostly an ad for the 2020 Jeep Gladiator, they gave a little preview of the new Jeep e-Bike at about the 38-second mark. The official website revealed that it's coming in June, with a 750-watt motor that can reach up to 40 miles on one charge. It's being made in cooperation with electric bike company QuietKat, and has 4.8-inch all-terrain tires for the kinds of electric biking you see in that Super Bowl ad.

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