BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins with the Z10 and Q10

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

BlackBerry has managed to regain some lost market share in its home country of Canada.

In a research note to investors on Thursday, Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt reported that while BlackBerry's market share was just 6 percent in Canada in the fourth quarter of 2012, it jumped to 13.5 percent in the first quarter of 2013. The analyst believes that there was some excitement that cropped up around BlackBerry's latest handsets, the Z10 and Q10, which helped spur the change.

Chrome programmer Lars Bak speaking at Google I/O 2013

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google long has been a firm believer that JavaScript, the programming language used to build Web apps such as Google Maps and Gmail, could shoulder a much heavier computing load.

But even as the company continues to push JavaScript's abilities with Chrome's V8 engine, some at the company believe JavaScript is pushing up against its limits. For that reason, Google developed its Dart programming language, and at the Google I/O developer show here, the company made the case for Dart.

Eran Feigenbaum, left, and Parisa Tabriz, two of Google's security experts.

(Credit: Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Two of Google's top Chrome and Google Apps security experts confessed that the problem of passwords will continue to plague the people who use them and computer security for the foreseeable future.

On the second day of the company's I/O conference here on Thursday, Eran Feigenbaum, the director of security for Google Apps, suggested that people follow three recommendations to stay safer online.

Google Chrome programmer Rick Byers speaking at Google I/O.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google would like to endow Chrome with Microsoft's technology for letting Web applications deal with input from mice, pens, and touch screens.

Developers of the Google browser said at the company's Google I/O show here Thursday that Microsoft's Pointer Events approach -- built into IE10, Windows 8, and Windows Phone 8, and being standardized at the World Wide Web Consortium -- has some real advantages.

Paul Otellini retired as Intel's CEO on Thursday.

(Credit: Dan Farber/CNET)

Otellini "decided against doing what it took" to make the chips for Apple's smartphone, The Atlantic reported, based on an interview with the newly retired executive. Here's what he told the publication:

He added that "my gut told me to say yes."

Bill Gates is now the world's richest person.

(Credit: Screenshot by Shara Tibken/CNET)

It looks like telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim has lost his grip on the title of world's richest person.

And who to fill his shoes? None other than Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

The quest to free the browser from plug-ins that can impede performance took another step forward on Thursday when Mozilla activated by default Web Real-Time Communication in its latest Firefox beta.

WebRTC, as it's known, is the HTML5 standard for streaming files, video, and audio on the Web. Mozilla activated getUserMedia in Firefox in April, which WebRTC uses to access the Webcam and microphone. Now, PeerConnection and DataChannels have been turned on in the Firefox 22 Beta, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

PeerConnection lets the browser set up real-time video and audio calls, while DataChannels enables peer-to-peer data sharing during a call. That data can be just about anything, including text, video files, and HTML pages, and it can be shared using standard drag-and-drop techniques. Mozilla noted in its blog post about WebRTC in Firefox that DataChannels can be used by gaming apps to reduce latency during peer-to-peer connections.

Dell's Round Rock, Texas, headquarters.

(Credit: Dell)

As the PC market continues to spiral downwards, the world's third-largest PC maker is tumbling down with it.

Dell on Thursday reported its first-quarter earnings five days earlier than expected, due to a report by The Wall Street Journal detailing leaked numbers on Monday.

Editor’s Note: Semil Shah is a contributor to TechCrunch. You can follow him on Twitter at @semil.

This is the final episode of my show on TCTV, “In The Studio.” The final guest is a good friend, Parth Shah (no relation), an engineer with VMware, and before that, at Yahoo! Parth combines the precision of CMU CS graduate’s take on web development with a hacker mentality, and has the rare skill of being able to explain some of the most complex enterprise IT concepts to those who don’t have as much context — such as me! In this short conversation, Parth shares with us his work at VMware and his generalized thoughts on how the enterprise stack is being disrupted today. This video would be a great primer for anyone who wants to begin to learn about the enterprise world.

As an added bonus, Parth and I have spent a few months collaborating on a post about the enterprise IT stack, written in lay-terms so that a wider audience can learn more about it. We are proud to publish this post today, which you can read here.