Tabbedout has a mighty partner for its new mobile payments effort.

On Monday, Tabbedout confirmed its new partnership with Google to bring users Google Wallet as a payment source in the Tabbedout app for Android.

Tabbedout, if you’re not familiar, provides an application that makes payment of restaurant or bar tabs simple and secure. The platform is integrated with point-of-sale systems in over 10,000 locations nationwide.

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Nearly one-half million U.S. Cellular customers are at a crossroads.

By summer’s end, at least 420,000 subscribers across the Midwest will be in need of a mobile network. That much became clear on Friday when Sprint finalized a $480 million deal that will transfer all of U.S. Cellular’s spectrum in Chicago, St. Louis and the general surrounding area to Sprint.

This is no mere transfer of network title, though. Sprint plans to shut down U.S. Cellular’s network completely some time in those two metropolitan regions in the next several months (Champagne, Ill., and South Bend, Ind., will also be affected).

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This week, Distimo – a prominent leader in app store market data and analytics – announced several key executive appointments.

The appointments are supposedly designed to scale business development efforts, drive global sales and strategic partnerships.

The company also announced the simultaneous opening of new offices in New York City, San Francisco, London, and Singapore.

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It’s official.

As widely rumored in recent months, Google has confirmed the forthcoming launch of its own music streaming service.

The service will go head-to-head with such established competitors at Spotify, Pandora, and Rdio.

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Just hours after Groupon introduced its Breadcrumb mobile POS solution, mobile payments giant Square rolled out a new hardware stand – the Square Stand - that transforms Apple’s iPad into a pretty effective cash register.

On Tuesday, Square formally unveiled the product, adding that there’s never been a better, more secure, or convenient way to accept credit card payments.

It goes without saying that the offering is designed to help Square Register merchants who previously had no standard hardware to prop up their tablet POS terminal.

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Mobile ad network Millennial Media on Monday announced the official launch of operations in the Japanese market.

According to the public company’s formal announcement, John Greiner has been named Managing Director of Japan, and will lead the company’s operations out of the newly opened Tokyo office.

“Following the opening of our Singapore office in 2011, expanding into Japan was a natural progression as we look to continue working with brands, agencies and developers across Asia,” says Mollie Spilman, EVP, Global Sales & Marketing at Millennial Media. “Our scale, innovative rich media capabilities and industry-leading data asset will allow us to bring a premium mobile advertising solution to the Japanese market.”

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Native ads continue to gain an upper hand on traditional banner ads. That’s the suggestion from a new report by Sharethrough and the IPG Media Lab.

Based on available research, native ads are far more engaging to consumers than banner ads.

The study, Benchmarking the Effectiveness of Native Ads, relied on surveys and eye-tracking technology to explore and analyze ad impact for major brands.

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