Bloomberg is reporting Tuesday morning that Amazon is testing a service that will allow tablet users to make purchases through mobile applications.

This is the latest clue that the online retail giant wants to step up competition with the likes of Google and Apple, two companies for which in-app purchases are old hat.

Sources familiar with the development say the service being tested allows both subscriptions and purchases of individual items within apps.

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This week, ViVOtech, the near field communication (NFC) software and systems company, confirmed their ambitious plan for the near future.

The company announced the first closing of its Series D round of funding, which will bring ViVOtech’s total funding to $96 million since the outfit was founded in 2001.

So what will all the cash be used for? To support ViVOtech’s growing market momentum and drive the rapid expansion of mCommerce worldwide.

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This week, the Federal Reserve reported findings from the survey it recently spearheaded which was designed to show the latest habits and trends among mobile consumers.

And the report tells us nothing we didn’t already know. Mobile usage is on fire and poised to grow at an exponential rate.

Consumers already make significant use of the Internet to inform their major purchases, the Fed survey shows. A majority of respondents (58 percent) indicate that they comparison-shop online, and the same percentage say they look at product reviews before making a large purchase while at a retail store. Even though security concerns may make consumers wary of mobile devices as the payment mechanism for point of-sale purchases, the technology can enable shopping and comparisons of products and services.

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It’s no secret that smartphone owners are using their devices as a shopping tool more now than ever.

From shopping and researching products to comparing prices and redeeming coupons, shoppers are increasingly tethered to their smartphones.

As a result, retailers are responding with mobile apps and websites designed to attract smartphone shoppers.

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The following is a guest post from Jim Wehmann, senior vice president of global marketing for Digital River.

Mobile commerce continues to generate a lot of buzz among online marketers. It holds out the promise of sizable incremental sales as tablet and mobile smartphone shipments continue to soar. Smartphone sales in 2012 are expected to be nearly 1.8 billion units, while tablet unit sales are expected to climb to nearly 100 million. Mobile commerce in the hands of this many consumers is a very exciting prospect. And it speaks to the very core of direct marketing – go where your customers are rather than waiting for them to come to you. Mobile commerce will truly enable consumers to purchase anytime, anywhere – on the commuter train, at the pool, at the game and everywhere else on the go.

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Another day, another headline for mobile payments.

On Thursday, MasterCard and BOKU a global provider of online mobile payments – announced a partnership that will enhance the shopping experience for consumers. How so? By allowing them to make payments, receive discounts and targeted offers, and monitor spending – all from their mobile phones whenever MasterCard PayPass is accepted.

The Boku partnership, which highlights yet another move by MasterCard to claim another chunk of the mobile payments space, is being gregariously hyped by both partners.

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The global popularity of Twitter is placing no shortage of demands on the microblogging platform to address the language barriers that otherwise prevent millions around the globe from interacting as freely as those who share a common language.

According to published reports Wednesday, the social network giant is said to be working on new features that would allow users to interact with tweets that reconcile language barriers.

In effect, Twitter is tweaking a new feature that will automatically translate tweets into a variety of languages via Bing Translator.

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