Corporate and legal

PayPal is taking a major leap into the payment-processing space: it's eliminating fees for businesses that sign up for its service.

The news was announced on Tuesday by PayPal president David Marcus, who said that any business that dumps its old point-of-sale (POS) services in favor of PayPal Here -- the company's mobile-payment-processing service -- or another POS offering that integrates PayPal's technology, it'll wave fees through the rest of the year.

"We will offer free credit, debit card, check, and of course PayPal processing for the remainder of the year to any qualifying U.… Read more

ORLANDO, Fla.--If there's one message BlackBerry wanted to convey at its annual confab, it's this: "We're back."

"It hasn't been that easy, and there's still a lot of work to do, but man, have we reached solid ground with this company," CEO Thorsten Heins said during his keynote address at BlackBerry Live on Tuesday.

BlackBerry was busy Tuesday, offering a smorgasbord of news. There was the device announcement in the form of the budget-friendly BlackBerry Q5. There was the updated BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10.1 for the business-minded. There was … Read more

Wireless consumers with a charitable conscience now have a wireless service built just for them.

The new prepaid service GIV Mobile launches Wednesday. The service, which basically resells T-Mobile network service, is unique in that it allows customers to designate up to three charities as recipients of monthly charitable contributions. The company says it will donate 8 percent of the monthly service fee or up to $50 a year directly to these designated charities.

This means that 8 percent of the $40 or $50 you pay each month for unlimited voice, text messaging and data service will automatically be contributed … Read more

The four major wireless carriers are putting their sway behind a massive ad campaign that aims to lower the amount of people that text while driving in the U.S.

Initiated by AT&T, the multi-million dollar "It Can Wait" campaign now has the support of Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and more than 200 other organizations. Besides rolling out TV, radio, and Internet ads throughout the summer, the campaign will also travel to thousands of retail stores, create a social media presence, and display messaging on Goodyear blimps.

"Texting while driving is a deadly habit that makes … Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. -- BlackBerry's advice for getting love from "CrackBerry" nation: build a native app.

In an effort to augment its library, BlackBerry allowed developers to port over existing Android apps to run on BlackBerry 10 devices. While most of them work, they can't access major features on the device. BlackBerry users notice the difference.

"From a commercial perspective, users hate them," said Alec Saunders, head of developer relations at BlackBerry. "Our partners who have ported apps get dinged for them."

There's some momentum behind app development for BlackBerry 10, Saunders … Read more

ORLANDO, Fla.--The Nokia Lumia 925 is a sexy-looking smartphone. Too bad a vast majority of U.S. consumers aren't going to even consider it.

Nokia unveiled its latest flagship smartphone at an event in London on Tuesday. But U.S. customers will care most about where it will sell here, and the news isn't great.

T-Mobile, the smallest nationwide carrier -- by far -- will get exclusive rights to sell the Lumia 925.

In an era when the top-tier handset vendors are moving away from exclusive deals, Nokia appears to be betting even more heavily on them. … Read more

ORLANDO, Fla.--OK, so is BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins a fan of tablets, or isn't he?

Heins, who made waves last month when he said he didn't see a place for tablets in five years, made some seemingly contradictory comments on tablets when he spoke on Tuesday during a Q&A session with the media while at the BlackBerry Live conference.

"We believe in a single element of mobile computing: one on your hip," Heins said.

Roughly 15 minutes later, Heins said BlackBerry was looking at the future of tablets and investing R&D … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Aiming to help Square Register merchants who have had no standard hardware, Square today unveiled a stand meant to hold an iPad and make for an easy and common point-of-sale experience.

At a press event across the street from Square's office, the mobile payment company's CEO, Jack Dorsey, and Jesse Dorogusker, who leads the Square Register team, showed off Stand, its new hardware intended to give merchants a streamlined way, and a single aesthetic, to accept payments.

The problem, said Dorsey, is that merchants have had no single method to take payments using Square Register. Around the … Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. -- BlackBerry wants to take on Twitter by creating its own social network through its BlackBerry Messenger service.

The company on Tuesday unveiled BBM Channel, which allows users and brands to create a BBM profile that other users can follow, similar to how people can follow brands and users on Twitter.

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins, speaking at the BlackBerry Live conference here today, touted the strength of the BBM network, which has 60 million users, and 10 billion messages sent and received each day.

More importantly, Heins said that half of the messages received are read within 20 … Read more