While I rarely geek out over technology, this is so awesome it has to happen: engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on a battery that can recharge using warmth from the human body. Among many other incredibly useful applications, this would obviously be a boon to mobile device users who would no longer have to cluster near electrical outlets, stubbornly avoiding talking to each other.

Mobile research is an increasingly important part of the retail experience for many consumers, and is correlated with a high likelihood of making a purchase, according to a new survey of over 1,500 British smartphone and tablet users performed by Nielsen on behalf of xAd and Telmetrics.

Mood Media Corporation, one of the world's largest providers of in-store media, is bringing mobile interactivity to thousands of affiliated stores through a partnership with Shazam. The new service, called Shazam In-Store, will enable retail businesses to create their own location-based mobile marketing programs using Shazam's audio-recognition app in combination with Mood's Presence technology.

Whether you are walking down Times Square or just perusing your Facebook feed, it is hard to ignore one of the most ambitious app ad campaigns ever as King.com pops open its sequel to "Candy Crush."

ComScore is expanding its mobile campaign measurement capabilities to include more precise tracking of advertising delivered within mobile apps -- including video ads -- in partnership with a number of digital ad platforms, the digital metrics firm announced this week. The new in-app measurement program complements comScore's existing metrics for ads delivered in mobile Web browsers.

Leveraging a half million opted-in mobile users, Placed has opened for public use a monthly ranking of the most-visited businesses in the U.S. Dig a little deeper, however, and the data reveals even more interesting business and app affinities.

Google is hoping to save mobile searchers a lot of wasted time and frustration by highlighting "mobile-friendly" sites in its search results -- meaning sites that render well on smartphones and tablets. Google's Mobile Search team announced the new search feature in a blog post on Tuesday. Google is planning to introduce the new mobile-friendly badge into search results over the next couple of weeks, and may even begin including the designation in its search rank signal for users searching with mobile devices.

It's no surprise that mobile payments are set to almost triple over the next five years, according to a new forecast from Forrester, which predicts the volume of payments will soar from almost $50 billion this year to $142 billion in 2019. Within the latter figure, in-person mobile payments (for example, at retail checkouts) will come to $34 billion, or 24% of the total -- up from just $3.4 billion today.

Ads that actually perform functions for users, rather than just interrupt them, bring us closer to realizing the true potential of mobile marketing. CMT and AdTheorent are doing something like that in a new campaign that can set your DVR to play back "Party Down South 2."

Apple Pay has created a lot of buzz, but most consumers still have concerns about the security of Apple's mobile wallet app, and would be more likely to trust a mobile wallet app from their bank, according to a new survey of 4,200 U.S. households conducted by Phoenix Marketing International. Over two-thirds of the respondents said they would rather use a mobile app from a bank, versus less than a third who said they would opt for Apple Pay, Phoenix found.