Earlier this week mobile payments company Square announced it is now processing $2 billion in payments volume per year and so far has registered 800,000 merchants for its service–that’s up from 500,000 card readers shipped in May. Remarkably, Square’s merchants are now 10% of the reach of the Visa/MasterCard world. In case you’re not familiar with Square, it lets merchants process credit card transactions using a swiping device that plugs into a smartphone or tablet. READ MORE
Google picked up minor social analytics player SocialGrapple, a Twitter analytics tool that generates charts and graphs reflecting data gathered on a user’s online presence. Google has confirmed that SocialGrapple’s team, including founder Andrey Petrov, will be joining the company. READ MORE
One challenge for companies that allow employees to bring their own devices such as smartphones and tablets to work is separating personal usage from business usage, with the latter having different requirements in terms of security. To address that issue, AT&T has announced its Toggle application and service that lets users create two distinct identities on a smartphone or tablet. READ MORE
Have you ever bought an app for your iPhone and later thought that was a waste of $.99? Soon you may not have to buy an app without the ability of trying it first. READ MORE
Apple may have plans to launch mobile application rentals for iOS, bloggers at Tech Erra claim after digging through lines of iTunes 10.5 beta 9 code. Certain lines of code seem to suggest that the company has plans to create apps that would delete themselves at the end of a rental period, the bloggers wrote. “Apps are automatically removed from your iTunes library at the end of the rental period,” read one pop-up warning. READ MORE
A security hole affecting some of HTC’s most popular Android phones, including the Thunderbolt and EVO 4G, could give apps with Internet permissions access to key user data such as email address, location and even text messages. READ MORE
Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and the biggest threat facing Google is … well, Google itself, actually. That’s according to company co-founder and current CEO Larry Page. READ MORE
Box.net announced a new version of its Windows Sync client, and the first-ever version of Box Sync for Mac OS X. According to PCWorld’s Tony Bradley, the cloud storage, sync and collaboration company also unveiled a variety of security enhancements, and new social integration with Salesforce.com’s Chatter platform. READ MORE
In a bid to put a stop to Android patent lawsuits between the two companies, Microsoft and Samsung signed a massive cross-licensing deal Wednesday. Samsung, maker of phones and tablet computers that run on the Android platform, will pay royalties to Microsoft to prevent further legal troubles. READ MORE
Flickr has built an Android application for mobile photographers. The company has had an iOS app for years, but the Android version includes several new features, including photo filters. The app also has easy topic and location tagging, slideshows, and photo sharing. READ MORE
