Portland, OR, transit riders can now easily purchase and use tickets from their smartphones via a new mobile ticketing application from local transit agency TriMet. The TriMet Tickets app is available for use on both local buses and trains. The app enables user to purchase transit tickets anywhere at any time that can be used on TriMet buses, MAX trains, WES Commuter Rail and the Portland Streetcar.

Italian label Bottega Veneta is aiming to increase traffic to its mcommerce site through a colorful banner advertisement featured on Vanity Fair's mobile site. The bright yellow Bottega Veneta handbag displayed in the ad is likely to catch the attention of readers browsing through Vanity Fair's site. Although the ad shows only a small portion of the handbag, the color draws the reader's eyes to the ad and is likely to generate click-throughs.

Tesco and The Body Shop are two of the first UK retailers to start using Apple's mobile wallet to market to their customers. Dubbed Passbook, Apple's mobile wallet lets users store items such as receipts, boarding passes and voucher codes on their mobile device. But take-up by UK companies has so far been slow, with the few firms that use it doing so only for managing customer relations. However, the two retailers, plus Seatwave and eFlorist, are now set to use Passbook as an affiliate marketing channel, letting users store vouchers for use later.

The UAE-based operator Etisalat plans to offer its own mobile money service, Flous (money in Arabic) in all 15 of its markets. Flous enables customers to pay credit card bills, pay for parking or tickets and buy other services from the operator. It works across a range of connected devices and not just telephones. Most recently the company launched Flous in the west African nation of Togo, working alongside local banks and MasterCard. It is already available in Egypt.

Retailers are overestimating the growth of consumer spending via mobile devices by over 100%, with 75% of leading retailers expecting consumers using mobile devices to account for 40% of sales and above in two years time, while 50% expect the mobile channel to account for 50% or more of total online sales. Consumers online, however, disagree, with just 13% predicting that 40% or more of their online spending (excluding grocery shopping) will be from smartphones (23% tablet devices) in two years time, and just 9% expecting to use smartphones for at least half of their online purchases (17% tablet devices).

As more and more people turn to smartphones and tablets to do their online shopping, manufacturers are turning to wearable devices as the next new platform for the masses. Google's got Glasses, and now Samsung is readying its launch of a smart watch. eBay was quick to announce that its mobile app will be compatible with the Samsung Galaxy Gear watch, which will become available on September 25th (October for U.S. consumers).

Vodafone in association with ICICI Bank launched the mobile wallet service, M-Pesa in April this year, which is aimed at enabling customers to send and receive small amounts of money via their mobile phones as simply as sending a text message. This was done in a bid to help about 700 million of the country's population who previously had no access to conventional banking. Within four months of the announcement, M-Pesa was rolled out across Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, West Bengal, UP East, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Rajasthan. Recently the service has been extended to UP West covering its 137 Tehsils and …

A number of banks in the Netherlands, including Rabobank, Amro, ING, and ABN, are working with MasterCard, the city of Leiden, and KPN (a mobile operator), in order to launch a new mobile payments program. According to a news release, it will involve the participation of 150 different businesses in the city. The mobile payments trial will also include 1,000 customers. It started on September 2 and will be carefully monitored by all of the involved parties to examine its potential in the country. In order to help to prepare for the program's soft launch, UL, a security transaction provide, …

Wells Fargo on Wednesday raised its projected price range for Apple stock, citing expectations that the company will become more flexible with its carrier partners, and that the anticipated inclusion of a fingerprint sensor in the "iPhone 5S" will drive up adoption rates among consumer and corporate markets. Analyst Maynard Um boosted his price range for shares of AAPL to between $525 and $575, as he high expectations for Apple's acquisition of AuthenTec, which is expected to result in a fingerprint sensor included in the company's so-called "iPhone 5S."

Walmart and EA Games are offering a unique promotion for the new Madden Football Game for Xbox via SMS and a phone's camera. If consumers buy the new game along with one more participating product, they can get $10 back by texting a picture of the receipt to 76477. It is not surprising that Walmart, one of the leading mobile marketers, is leveraging SMS for in-store and online promotions.