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BlackBerry has updated the "Passport," their oddball, square smartphone.

Announced Tuesday, the BlackBerry (BBRY, Tech30) Passport Silver Edition is an upgraded version of the BlackBerry Passport, released in late 2014. 

The Silver Edition has a 4.5" square screen, 13 MP camera and the latest BlackBerry operating system -- the same as the original Passport. But a closer look tells you why this BlackBerry isn't going to make you yawn and move on.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based firm has been listening to its customers and implementing subtle but necessary changes.

"We strive to deliver products that combine cutting-edge technology with purposeful, globally recognized design, and the BlackBerry Passport Silver Edition is the latest manifestation of this vision," Scott Wenger, Global Head of Design at BlackBerry, said in the press release.

BlackBerry claims that the design improvements make communication easier.

"It brings together BlackBerry's latest OS platform, enhanced productivity features, and a refined industrial design based on customer and user feedback to deliver an unmatched experience for professionals who value precision and focus," Wenger said.

A new stainless steel body adds strength and durability. A textured back and rounded bottom edges that don't jab you when you type will go a long way with BlackBerry fans.

And if you feel as strongly about a physical keyboard as Kim Kardashian does, you're still in luck. The physical tap-tap-tap is here to stay. The trackpad capability across the improved keyboard is ideal for those who resent touchscreens.

Makers of this business-phone have made smart changes. With every enhancement, BlackBerry hit two birds with one stone: aesthetics and functionality.

Don’t write off BlackBerry yet, this new smartphone could help them compete with the big players in the market.

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Instagram has switched on its advertising API (application programming interface). It's a major move for the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app that will almost immediately help transform it into a major mobile advertising business to rival Google and Twitter.

The third-party partners now plugging their software into the API made a coordinated announcement about their involvement on Tuesday morning.

By opening up an API to partners, marketers can now — for the first time — start buying Instagram ads and planning their Instagram marketing in a more automated fashion, alongside their other digital ad buys on Facebook or Twitter.

Before, buying Instagram ads was an exceptional case in the media plan that required contacting an Instagram sales representative directly. That meant Instagram advertising was mostly limited to those willing to make big investments in both budget and time. Starting soon all advertisers can plan Instagram campaigns alongside their other digital ads and cross-promote, schedule, and monitor their Instagram marketing activity — including photos that aren't paid-for ads — across other social networks, all in a self-serve fashion, using third-party platforms.

The Instagram Ads API is the latest in a series of moves the platform has made to start opening up the money jets. Back in June, alongside announcing the API test, Instagram announced that all of Facebook's ad-targeting tools will be opened up to Instagram advertisers. In the same month it also launched "Shop Now" buttons and other messages for advertisers to link outside the app. And earlier this year Instagram introduced "carousel ads," allowing marketers to fit more images into one single ad.

Analysts and researchers are extremely bullish about the potential for Instagram to become a major advertising business. EMarketer predicts Instagram is on track to generate $595 million in advertising revenue this year, and by 2017 it will be on track to surpass Google and Twitter in terms of US mobile display ad revenues.

In a research note published last month, analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicted Instagram's ad revenues could reach near $1 billion in 2017, rising to as much as $3.86 billion by 2020.

An Instagram representative said: "The Instagram Ads API will help us make ads more relevant to the community, serve more diverse business objectives, and make buying on the platform easier for advertisers. We started working with a group of Facebook Marketing Partners a few weeks ago and they've brought great experience and technological savvy onto the platform. We'll continue to build upon the Instagram Ads API in the coming weeks and months."

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Puerto Rico doesn't have enough money to pay its bills. It went into default for the first time in its history on Monday. Now it's running out of water too. Literally.

A drought has forced the island's government to ration water. It's become so bad that the government is actually turning off tap water in people's homes, sometimes for days at a time. The main tourist areas, however, are exempt for now.

It's easy to blame this problem on the hot, dry weather, but Puerto Ricans say that isn't the only culprit. They believe the government has mismanaged the island's water supply and pipes for years.

Juan Camacho's home will have running water for a day and then no water at all for the following two days. He lives in Trujillo Alto, a town that is a mere 13 miles from downtown San Juan, the capital.

When the water comes back on, many Puerto Ricans like Camacho keep the faucets running for hours, filling up cans, bowls and bins with water.

Camacho, a social activist, says the government has poorly maintained the local reservoir in his area, causing dirt to get in the reservoir, thus making the water undrinkable.

"We have a big drought problem," says Camacho, 68. "We are saving water -- not just for drinking -- but for bathing and other fundamental things."

In 1994, the island went through a similar water crisis. Puerto Ricans hoarded water then like they are now. Buckets of water sitting in a hot, tropical climate gave birth to mosquitoes, which sparked a Dengue fever outbreak.

Maritza Stanchich remembers it well. She got Dengue fever in 1994. It was one of the worst experiences of her life. The government imposed water rations today make her concerned that another Dengue outbreak could ensue.

A professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Stanchich isn't affected by the water rations since her San Juan neighborhood is a tourist hot spot. Still, she's helping out friends who get their water turned off.

"I've offered showers to some of my friends in the area," says Stanchich.

It's another major problem in a summer of sad news for Puerto Rico. Add on the default, an economy spiraling out of control and concerns about Congress lowering Medicare funding to the island, and it's easy to understand why Puerto Ricans are leaving in a mass exodus.

"This is a perfect storm in the worst sense of the word," says Stanchich.

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Shares in Greek banks crashed 30% Monday as trading resumed on the Athens stock exchange for the first time since the country was nearly forced to abandon the euro last month.

The benchmark index in Athens opened nearly 23% lower, with banking stocks the biggest losers. The country's four biggest lenders -- Piraeus (BPIRF), Alpha Bank (ALBKF), the National Bank of Greece (NBG) and Eurobank all plunged 30% -- the daily limit -- immediately after the open.

Stocks in other sectors recovered slightly during the morning but the index was still down by more than 16% by early afternoon.

Greece suspended all trading at the end of June when the country fell into default on its debt. Capital controls were introduced, including the closure of banks and financial markets, to prevent billions of euros from flooding out of the country. ATM withdrawals were limited to 60 euros ($66) per day.

The banks reopened on July 20 -- with some restrictions -- after Europe agreed in principle to a new bailout. But the shutdown caused large parts of the economy to seize up.

The extended closure had a devastating effect on Greek factories, where activity slumped to its lowest level on record in July. There was a huge drop in new orders, and many companies were forced to limit operations because they didn't have the cash to pay for supplies abroad.

The European Commission expects Greece's economy to shrink by 4% this year. Latest available data show unemployment was 25.6% in June. Massive cash withdrawals by account holders in the first half of the year, and the economy's collapse back into recession has left Greek banks in a dire state.

They are relying on emergency cash from the European Central Bank to stay afloat. Europe's new $96 billion bailout plan includes 25 billion euros ($26.7 billion) to repair the banks' finances.

But even with the bailout, investors are bracing themselves for huge losses as they may have to contribute to the rescue of the banks.

That's because Greece was required to adopt European Union rules on restructuring banks as part of the new bailout agreement. These rules are designed to place more of the burden of bank rescues on investors and major depositors rather than taxpayers.

Greece urgently needs money before August 20, when it must make a payment to the ECB if it wants to stay in the euro. Europe has already provided Greece with 7.16 billion euros in a bridging loan. Some analysts say Greece might need another emergency loan if details of the bailout deal are not agreed on time.

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03

Aug

How Uber fought City Hall...and won

The company has closed a new round of funding of nearly $1 billion and is now the most valuable startup in the world.

Congratulations, people of Beijing! You have just won the 2022 Winter Olympics bid. Now, prepare to be disappointed: The costs will be higher and the benefits lower than you think.

The prospect of hosting the Olympics, winter or summer has lost its appeal in recent years as budgets skyrocketed and economic windfalls failed to materialize.

Two events in particular have spooked potential host cities. Russia is thought to have spent an incredible $50 billion on the Sochi Olympics - the most expensive in history. China dropped at least $40 billion on the 2008 Beijing Summer Games.

Concerns over runaway spending wreaked havoc on bidding for 2022, forcing the International Olympic Committee to make changes to the process. Never again, analysts say, does the committee want to be faced with a choice between just two cities, both with major drawbacks.

Beijing suffers from a lack of snow, and air pollution could pose a problem. China will also host some events at Zhangjiakou, about 125 miles from the capital. But it should be able to save some money because it invested so heavily in infrastructure for the 2008 Olympics.

Almaty offered a more compact competition area, and its people have a genuine affinity for winter sports -- but the city is not well known. Both countries are ruled by autocratic governments, and frequently criticized by human rights groups.

It was a final pairing Olympics officials were surely hoping to avoid. In addition to Beijing and Almaty, the initial field consisted of Krakow, Poland; Stockholm, Sweden; Lviv, Ukraine; and Oslo, Norway.

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Facebook just built a gigantic solar-powered drone that will stay in the stratosphere for months at a time, beaming broadband Internet to rural and hard-to-reach areas.

The drone, called Aquila, is the baby of Facebook's (FB, Tech30) year-old Connectivity Lab. The lab has been developing new technology as part of the social network's mission to "connect everybody in the world."

Four billion people don't have access to the Internet, and 10% of the world's population lacks the necessary infrastructure to get online. To reach these people, Facebook is working on drones, satellites, lasers and terrestrial Internet technology.

On Thursday, Facebook announced it had finished construction on its first full-sized drone and announced other project milestones. The team's researchers say they've found a way to use lasers to deliver data speeds from the drones ten times faster than the industry standard.

Facebook has been working on the Aquila for a year, building off of technology it acquired when it bought UK drone company Ascenta in 2014. The solar-powered unmanned aircraft is designed to fly far above commercial airspace and weather, and to stay in the air for three months at a time. It could give Internet access to people located in a 50-mile radius on the ground.

"It's sort of like a backbone of Internet using lasers in the sky, that's the dream we have," said Yael Maguire, the engineering director of Facebook's Connectivity Lab.

Aquila hasn't taken flight yet, but the UK-based team has done flight testing on a number of scale models. Over the next six months, the group will run structural and other tests and eventually take it for its first test flight. The technology is years away from being used in the field -- Facebook doesn't yet have an exact timeline.

The Aquila drone looks like a giant v-shaped boomerang. It's 140-feet in diameter -- about the same wingspan as a Boeing 737 -- and covered in solar cells. It is made of light carbon fiber that is two to three times stronger than steel when cured. It will weigh around 880 pounds when fully outfitted with motors, batteries and communications equipment. The Aquila will be launched by tethering it to a helium balloon and floating it straight past the weather and commercial airspace.

During the day, it will cruise in circles at 90,000 feet, soaking up solar power. At night, it will save energy by drifting down to 60,000 feet. Though current regulations require one pilot on the ground for each drone, Facebook hopes to design the Aquila so it can fly without a dedicated pilot.

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Facebook is keeping its good form.

At the end of June, nearly 1.5 billion people used Facebook (FB, Tech30) at least once a month, the company reported on Wednesday. That's more than any other technology product in the world, including Microsoft's notorious Windows operating system.

This tremendous size has allowed Facebook to build a ton of new features that capitalize on all the data it has on its users -- primarily by selling targeted ads. During the second quarter, Facebook's ad sales topped $3.8 billion, 43% growth from a year ago.

The success story was even bigger for Facebook's mobile ad business, where revenue rose 62% to $2.9 billion. That is an impressive number considering none of its sales came from phones as recently as three years ago.

Facebook's continued and steady growth comes as rival Twitter (TWTR, Tech30) has hit a wall. On Tuesday, Twitter's interim CEO Jack Dorsey explained that user growth was slowing because people remain clueless about why they need Twitter.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and CEO, credited the success to an easy to understand mission, and features that support the mission.

On the earnings call, he told investors that Facebook is all about letting people communicate with their friends and family, which is "very fundamental."

Investors have been bullish about the company because they see so much untapped potential in the massive user base and the platform's messaging tools. Facebook did not disappoint them with its second quarter performance, as it beat earnings and growth expectations. In addition, profit was up 28% to $1.4 billion.  

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