Despite the pandemic, Apple has spent most of the last two years relentlessly upgrading its product lineup, and its moves are definitely paying off. The company just announced financial results for its fiscal year third quarter (for normal humans, the months of April through June), and the company made a shocking amount of money. All of its product segments (the iPhone, Mac, iPad, services, and wearables/home/accessories) increased in revenue year-over-year, leading to total revenue of $81.4 billion. As has often been the case, iPhone revenue of $39.6 billion made up almost half of that figure. 

Quarterly revenue was up 36 percent year-over-year, and as such profit grew in a big way, too — in fact, it nearly doubled. Apple reported $21.7 billion in net income, up 93 percent compared to a year ago.

As already mentioned, all of Apple's product categories grew last quarter, but the biggest winner was the iPhone. Revenue grew 50 percent year-over-year, making it pretty clear the iPhone 12 lineup is a major success for the company. Apple's services division continues to explode; $17.5 billion in revenue represented 33 percent growth, and the category makes more than double the money of any other division in Apple, with the obvious exception of the iPhone.

The company's "wearables, home and accessories" group lumps the Apple Watch in with devices like the HomePod mini and the new AirTags. It grew 36 percent and made $8.8 billion in revenue. The Mac and iPad had more modest gains, with Mac revenue increasing 16 percent year over year to $8.2 billion and iPad revenue climbing 12 percent to $7.4 billion. While the Mac number isn't an eye-popper like services, it's worth nothing that just a few years ago, Mac revenue was pretty flat, sitting in the $4 billion range for a while — but it seems like the M1 Mac move has helped spur some big increases.

As usual, Apple CEO Tim Cook is holding a call with investors — we'll update this story with anything we learn.

Microsoft's business continues to thrive thanks to its leadership in cloud computing and productivity apps. In its Q4 earnings report today, the company reported a 21 percent increase in revenues compared to last year, reaching $46.2 billion. But even more impressive, its profits jumped by 47 percent to reach $16.5 billion. Microsoft's success is practically a broken record by this point — last quarter it saw a 44 percent increase in profit, and before that it grew by 33 percent — but it's still managing to beat the expectations of Wall Street analysts.

The key to Microsoft's growth is the same as it has been for the past several years. Its Intelligent Cloud business is seemingly unstoppable, growing by 30 percent compared to last year. And it's still seeing plenty of growth with Office, Linkedin and its other business apps, which together have increased revenues by 25 percent. Even its More Personal Computing group, which includes Windows and Xbox, saw its business improve by 9 percent. (Thatcategory saw a few dips in the quarter though: Surface business fell by 20 percent, and Xbox content and services saw a 4 percent drop.)

Microsoft's Q4 earnings aren't really telling us anything new, as the company's entire 2021 fiscal year has been incredibly strong. The company reported an overall revenue increase of 18 percent for 2021 ($168.1 billion), as well as a 38 percent jump in profit for the year ($61.3 billion). The company's previous earnings report proved that it made out well during the pandemic, but now it seems like those gains aren't stopping anytime soon. 

After several quarters of continuallygrowingrevenue, Google's parent company Alphabet announced today that it made $61.9 billion in Q2 2021. That's a jump of 62 percent from the same period last year, when the organization's revenue dipped due to the onset of the pandemic. Last quarter, Alphabet posted $55.3 billion in revenue. Clearly, the company has long recovered from the slump it faced from the pandemic last year. 

Like it did last quarter, Alphabet's net income rose significantly, from about $7 billion in Q2 2020 to $18.5 billion in the same period this year. Most of its money continues to come from advertising and search, while Google Cloud and its "Other Bets" division saw modest revenue growth as well. 

CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement that "a rising tide of online activity in many parts of the world" and "long-term investments in AI and Google Cloud" drove the results.

The company is hosting an earnings call at 4:30pm ET today on its YouTube channel, where CEO Sundar Pichai will make a statement regarding the results. We'll update this story with more details as we get it. 

This story is developing, please refresh for updates.

After experiencing enormous growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoom has made its first major acquisition by purchasing cloud contact center company Five9 for $14.7 billion, it announced. The move will allow Zoom to expand into call center technology worth up to $24 billion, diversifying its products once employees start returning to the office after the pandemic. 

Five9 will become an operating unit of Zoom when the deal is closed, likely in the first half of 2022. "We are continuously looking for ways to enhance our platform and the addition of Five9 is a natural fit that will deliver even more... value to our customers,” Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in a statement.

Five9 is a 20-year-old firm with 2,000 customers worldwide, including SalesForce and Under Armour, and processes over 7 billion minutes of calls annually. Zoom notes that it was already a "long-term" customer of Five9 and said the partnership will give Five9's business clients access to Zoom products like the multi-platform Zoom Phone app.

The acquisition won't have much of an impact on consumers, as Five9 is largely a business-to-business company. However, Zoom's recent growth has been fueled in part by employees needing to work and communicate from home due to the pandemic. Once that crisis eases, Five9's contact center business will provide another revenue stream.

While most of its products are aimed at businesses, Zoom has also embraced the consumer side of things. Last year, the company released a new category of products called Zoom for Home, with both software and a line of hardware devices. While those products are aimed at employees working from home, they can also be used by consumers looking for a reliable video calling system. 

One way fintechs have set themselves apart from traditional banks is by embracing crypto trading. For some of the biggest names in the sector, the expansion has been a success. Take PayPal. Following in the footsteps of Square'sCash App, the company began allowing US members to buy, hold and sell Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and Bitcoin cash back in November. It followed that with the option to checkout with crypto in March and brought crypto trading to its subsidiary Venmo the following month. Now, as part of its ongoing push into digital currencies, PayPal is upping the amount of crypto users can buy to $100,000 per week and scrapping the $50,000 annual limit altogether.

The expansion marks a fivefold increase to the service's crypto purchasing limit in less than a year. PayPal says it's also adding to its in-app guides and educational materials on cryptocurrency to help dispel myths around virtual currencies. In January, PayPal made an investment in US-based tech startup Taxbit, which helps consumers and businesses calculate the taxes owed on cryptocurrency holdings.

The payments company has made it clear that its crypto push is about driving engagement. Speaking at JP Morgan's annual tech conference in May, PayPal CFO John Rainey said that people who have purchased crypto use the app twice as much as others. A large part of that is people checking the prices of their holdings. Rainey added that 50 percent of crypto holders use the app daily.

Mastercard and Verizon (Engadget’s parent company) say they plan to work together on “transformational” financial technologies. The companies told CNBC they hope their new partnership starts producing results by 2023. One of the main areas they plan to work on is contactless payments. Specifically, they want to push Mastercard’s Tap on Phone platform, which allows compatible mobile devices to double as point of sale terminals that can process NFC payments. Among other things the two plan to explore are technologies that will make it easier for businesses to add touchless payment systems to their stores.

Naturally, 5G will play a significant role in all the solutions Verizon and Mastercard have in mind. “5G will enable the small and medium business to handle transactions more quickly and focus on what they are really delivering to customers,” Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg told CNBC. Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach went on to tell the outlet the company expects small- and medium-sized businesses will represent the biggest area of growth for 5G contactless payments.

As for Verizon’s stake in all this, the company has a lot riding on the success of its 5G rollout. It spent $45.4 billion, more than AT&T and T-Mobile combined, in the recent Federal Communications Commission’s C-band auction to secure as mid-band spectrum as possible. Incidentally, 2023 is when the carrier expects its 5G network to provide coverage to 175 million people across the US.

Electric hypercar company Rimac is taking control of Volkswagen’s supercar brand Bugatti as part of a joint venture with Porsche (which VW owns). Bugatti and Rimac will share resources and expertise but remain separate brands with their own production and distribution setups as part of the new company, which will be called Bugatti Rimac. 

Once the joint venture is up and running, which is expected to happen later this year, Bugatti will be able to harness Rimac's EV knowhow and perhaps carry on its legacy of making electric vehicles. Rimac, meanwhile, can tap into the knowledge of Bugatti, which makes the second-fastest street-legal car on the planet in the Bugatti Veyron. 

Rimac will own 55 percent of Bugatti Rimac and Porsche will hold the remainder. As of March, Porsche directly owns 24 percent of Rimac, following an initial investment for a 10 percent stake in 2018. 

Meanwhile, the Rimac Group is creating a new company, Rimac Technology, to handle "development, production and supply of battery systems, drivetrains and other EV components."

Bugatti Rimac's headquarters will be in Zagreb, Croatia, where Rimac is based. A 200 million Euro ($237.3 million) Rimac Campus is scheduled to open in 2023 and it will be the research and development hub for both Rimac and Bugatti hypercars.

“We are combining Bugatti’s strong expertise in the hypercar business with Rimac’s tremendous innovative strength in the highly promising field of electromobility," Porsche CEO Oliver Blume said in a statement. "Bugatti is contributing a tradition-rich brand, iconic products, a loyal customer base and a global dealer network to the joint venture. In addition to technology, Rimac is contributing new development and organizational approaches.”

The Justice Department is investigating Lordstown Motors, according to The Wall Street Journal. It’s unclear what the DOJ is examining, but the US Attorney’s office leading the investigation often handles fraud allegations. At the moment, Lordstown is also the subject of an SEC inquiry into claims the company made about pre-orders for its upcoming Endurance electric pickup truck. In both instances, the startup says it’s working with investigators.

“Lordstown Motors is committed to cooperating with any regulatory or governmental investigations and inquiries,” a spokesperson for the company told The Verge. “We look forward to closing this chapter so that our new leadership – and entire dedicated team – can focus solely on producing the first and best full-size all-electric pickup truck, the Lordstown Endurance.”

Lordstown was one of several EV startups that went public last year through what’s known as a special acquisitions company or SPAC. The maneuver helped the company raise $675 million, but it has been embattled ever since. Its problems started in March when Hindenburg Research published a report accusing the company of misleading investors about the demand for its Endurance truck. In a later SEC filing, the company warned it didn’t have enough money to start manufacturing its first EV. With today’s news, it also becomes the second high-profile electric vehicle startup to come under scrutiny from both the DOJ and SEC.

Sony has just bought another studio, and no it’s not Bluepoint Games. On Thursday, the company announced the acquisition of Nixxes Software, a Dutch developer best known for supporting Crystal Dynamics, IO Interactive and Eidos Montreal in porting some of their games over to PC. “We can’t wait to get to work and are so excited to bring our technical and development expertise to an IP powerhouse like PlayStation Studios,” Jurjen Katsman, founder and senior director of development at Nixxes, said in a statement.

The deal suggests Sony plans to step up its efforts to bring more of its exclusives to Windows. In the last year, the company released Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone to Steam and the Epic Games Store, and Sony president and CEO Jim Ryan said more of the company’s first-party games would make their way to the PC in the future. The purchase of Nixxes also follows Sony's acquisition of Returnal developer Housemarque earlier in the week.    

Google is tightening its ad screening rules in the UK after a steep rise in fraudulent adverts online during the pandemic. The search giant has announced that starting in the fall it will only run ads for financial products and services from sources that have been cleared by the UK's financial watchdog. 

Google said it will update its policy from August 30th and begin enforcing the rules a week later on September 6th. At that point, advertisers will have to demonstrate that they are authorized by the UK Financial Conduct Authority or qualify for its limited exemptions. According to Google, the requirement covers financial products and services that go beyond the regulator's ambit. 

The decision didn't happen overnight, however. Google has been on the end of mounting criticism from regulators, law enforcement and consumer groups over its perceived lack of action against scrupulous ads. According to trade body UK Finance, investment scam cases on search engines saw a 32 percent increase last year. These typically involve criminals duping victims into moving their money to a fictitious fund (such as a pension pot) or to pay for a fake investment. Losses incurred from the fake ads totaled over £135 million. 

Meanwhile, the FCA threatened to take legal action against Google and social media companies after it issued 1,200 warnings about fraudulent ads on their platforms, double the amount from 2019. The regulator told a parliamentary committee that it was able to start taking action in the wake of Brexit. In the past, the FCA had been bound by EU rules on financial ads that did not apply to online platforms.

Others blamed Google's system for the failings. UK consumer group Which? found that 51 percent of the 1,870 search engine users it surveyed didn't know how to report suspicious ads in search listings. The perceived inertia from Google led some lawmakers to claim that it was content to continue profiting from the bogus ads. MPs told The Guardian that the company was benefiting from online scammers who paid to host ads on its platforms. While the FCA had also paid Google more than £600,000 ($830,000) in 2020 and 2021 to run ‘anti-scam’ ads.

For its part, Google claims it has improved its ad screening rules using a mix of machine learning and human review. The tech giant removed 3.1 billion adverts that violated its policies in 2020 according to its ad transparency report. It also began verifying advertisers in January by requiring them to submit legal identification, business incorporation documents and proof of the country in which they operate. Back in 2018, Google followed in Facebook's footsteps by banning cryptocurrency ads.

“This new update builds on significant work in partnership with the FCA over the last 18 months to help tackle this issue,” Ronan Harris, vice president and MD, Google UK and Ireland, said in a blog post. “Today’s announcement reflects significant progress in delivering a safer experience for users, publishers and advertisers. While we understand that this policy update will impact a range of advertisers in the financial services space, our utmost priority is to keep users safe on our platforms — particularly in an area so disproportionately targeted by fraudsters.”