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Purchasing merchandise with a mobile phone is nothing new in many parts of the world, including Japan, South Korea, Scandinavia and many other parts of Europe, but it hasn't taken hold in the U.S. yet. Google Wallet is around but it hasn't been heavily adopted thus far. Apple, seeing a future in mobile commerce, has been working fervently on such a system.

According to The Information, in recent months Apple has been in talks with many payment industry companies, including Visa, in effort to come to an agreement on a mobile payment system. People with knowledge of those discussions say that

It's the summer movie season and that means lot and lots of movie tie-in apps and games are being created for mobile devices. Marvel Entertainment launched Guardians of the Galaxy: The Universal Weapon last week, and today Nickelodeon released the official Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie game. Just like Marvel, Nickelodeon decided not to release a free-to-play title, but they did include in-app purchases, which will probably not sit well with some fans.

TMNT is a classic, side-scrolling beat 'em up where players can "take back the streets of NYC" using Leo, Mikey, Donnie and Raph. Players can upgrade their turtles with unique powers and weapons, complete combo moves to unlock a "Turtle Power" mini-game and use special abilities like "Freak Streak". The game features a Story Mode written by Tom Waltz, a Survival mode and Leaderboard support.

The Angry Birds franchise may be getting a little crazy with all its products, games and HASBRO toy tie-ins, but Rovio Entertainment's Angry Birds Transformers Comic Con trailer is pretty fun. Rovio hasn't revealed much about the game, but we do know there will be lots Transformer telepods for people to waste their money on, and plenty of "Autobird" and "Deceptihog" action. No official release date for the game has been announced.

Rovio is going to be at Comic Con from July 24th to July 27th. You can see their full schedule of events here. Rovio isn't the only mobile gaming studio showing off their products in San Diego. AMC is previewing their new game based on the Walking Dead television series, and Bandai Namco also unveiled its 2014 mobile game lineup at the event.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) closed at $94.43 with a volume of just under 50 million shares, which is about average in recent weeks. As of this writing, AAPL is trading at $94.66, which doesn't seem too exciting considering the company is widely expected to post strong numbers when it releases its Q3 earnings after today's closing bell. The iPhone largely drove sales in the first half of 2014 and, according to Bidness Etc., third quarter sales will be strong as well, with analysts expecting 35.88 million units sold (UPDATE: Q3 earnings report is in). This will miss second quarter sales of 43.72 million units, but it was expected that customers would hold off buying new iPhones this quarter, with the iPhone 6 launch just around the corner.

In other news, we recently reported that Apple CEO Tim Cook was looking for new members for Apple's Board of Directors. This past week, on Thursday, Apple announced that Susan L. Wagner, founding partner and director of BlackRock, has been elected to Apple's board of directors. She will replace Bill Campbell, the board’s

It looks like Apple is preparing for its largest iPhone launch yet. The company told suppliers it is planning to build 70-80 million next-generation devices by December 30, according to The Wall Street Journal. This is a large increase from the 50-60 million iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s units Apple ordered last year. Apple is predicting that iOS users will be drawn to the new larger sized iPhone models, and hopes for an increase in sales after a disappointing performance by the iPhone 5c.

There have also been rumors that the 5.5-inch model is suffering from manufacturer delays and that it will be pushed back until 2015. Even the WSJ noted that display makers "are struggling to improve the production of the larger 5.5-inch screens".

"The production is complicated because the displays are using in-cell technology, which allows the screens to be thinner and lighter by integrating touch sensors into the liquid crystal display and making it unnecessary to have a separate touch-screen layer," explained the WSJ.