The nation’s second largest wireless carrier has reportedly held talks with Leap Wireless in recent months over a possible acquisition, according to Reuters. The move is the latest attempt by AT&T in its efforts to find additional wireless spectrum after its failed acquisition of T-Mobile. The talks were serious enough that Leap reportedly hired bankers to advise it on a potential deal, although it is unclear if discussions are still ongoing. Leap Wireless, which operates the nation’s seventh...

Zynga on Wednesday announced that it has acquired app developer OMGPOP for $180 million, plus another $30 million in employee-retention payments, AllThingsD reported. The company confirmed the acquisition during a conference call on Wednesday afternoon, however it did not disclose the terms of the deal. Even though the OMGPOP’s app is only six weeks old, the turn based Pictionary-style game “Draw Something” has already become the most popular Facebook Connect game, beating out Zynga’s ...

Beats Audio, the company behind the popular Beats by Dr. Dre line of over-ear and in-hear headphones, is reportedly planning to acquire subscription music service MOG. The deal was first reported by Business Insider and then reaffirmed by AllThingsD on Tuesday. Founded in 2005, MOG is a service similar to Spotify, Rhapsody and Microsoft’s Zune. It makes use of a freemium model and allows subscribers to stream unlimited music to a computer, tablet or smartphone. At last count, MOG touted more than 500,00...

Motorola Mobility does not expect any large changes following Google’s acquisition of the company. Alain Mutricy, Motorola’s senior vice president of portfolio and product management, said interview with Fierce Wireless that the vendor will not alter its plans once it comes under the Google “umbrella.” Until the deal closes, which may be soon, Motorola and Google are two separate companies and the manufacturer will  continue on its path as subsidiary of Google. “I don’t ...

Apple is a company that somehow manages to churn out an above-average amount of beautiful products, fantastic software and class-leading services. When it misses, however, it misses big. MobileMe is one example. Ping is a better one. A third example is Apple’s Genius recommendation engine, which seeks to present App Store users with a list of applications they may enjoy based on their app download history. Right now, Genius is awful, but Apple’s recent acquisition of a company called Chomp may s...

Sony on Thursday announced the transaction to acquire Ericsson’s 50% stake in Sony Ericsson has been completed. Sony and Ericsson announced the deal last October, which was worth €1.05 billion in cash and made Sony Ericsson a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony. The company will be renamed to Sony Mobile Communications and will “further integrate the mobile phone business as a vital element of its electronics business, with the aim of accelerating convergence between Sony’s lineup of network enabl...

The United States Department of Justice has approved Google’s proposed $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility, Reuters’s Poornima Gupta reports. The deal gained regulatory approval from the European Commission earlier on Monday, and a U.S. approval was expected to follow today or later this week. Google revealed its intention to purchase Motorola Mobility late last summer, pointing to the potential to create cohesive end-to-end solutions as one of the main draws for Google. “Motorola...

Google on Monday announced that its proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility has been approved by regulators in Europe. ”We’re happy that today the European Commission approved our proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility, which we announced in August,” Google Vice President & Deputy General Counsel Don Harrison wrote in a post on a company blog. ”This is an important milestone in the approval process and it moves us closer to closing the deal. We are now just waiting for decisions...

Google’s bid to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion is set to gain regulatory approval as soon as next week, multiple reports claim. Google announced last summer that it intended to purchase the struggling smartphone and set-top box maker for $40 per share, and CEO Larry Page explained that Motorola’s patent portfolio was a key draw for the company. Google’s Android partners had fallen under attack from patent predators such as Apple and Microsoft, and the ability to spread Motorola&...

Nikesh Arora, Google’s SVP and Chief Business Officer, will run Motorola once the Google acquisition closes later this year, according to rumor published by Business Insider. Arora ran the company’s international business for Eric Schmidt, taking over the global business after the former CEO stepped down. Arora has reportedly been “agitating” for a CEO position and was included on a short list of candidates to head Yahoo. It is possible, however, that a promised CEO slot at Motorola c...

Twitter finally appears to be preparing a new wave of attacks on the malicious spammers that have overrun the popular social network during the past year. Web security firm Dasient on Monday announced that it has been acquired by Twitter. ”Since its inception, Dasient has been focused on solving web-scale security problems involving malware and other types of online abuse,” the firm noted in a blog post. “In 2009, Dasient launched its web anti-malware platform, capable of scanning URLs an...

The European Union will decide on February 13th whether or not to give its blessing to Google’s planned purchase of Motorola Mobility. Google recently provided European courts with more information in support of the merger, Reuters said. The European Union suspended its review of the merger on December 12th pending Google’s submission of documents that are considered “essential to its evaluation of the transaction.” Google announced on August 15th its intentions to purchase Motorola M...

After the company’s failed acquisition of T-Mobile, AT&T is said to be in dire need of additional wireless spectrum and may be looking at Dish Network, the second-largest satellite-television provider in the United States. “AT&T wants to get more spectrum,” said Recon Analytics Roger Entner in a telephone interview with Bloomberg. “They are a year behind Verizon in the LTE race. Dish would undoubtedly be a good combination and it would solve a lot of AT&T’s problems.” Dish acqu...

Research In Motion is currently weighing every single option it can think of in an effort to reverse a negative trend that is approaching a boiling point for investors. Reports that RIM is currently in talks to license its software to other vendors are accurate according to our trusted sources, though we have been told that RIM is most likely leaning toward an outright sale of one or more divisions, or even the whole company. The front runner, we have been told by a trusted source with knowledge of the situ...