Accelerate Worldwide, a commercial management firm co-founded by former CEO of AOL Europe Kate Burns and UK executives Anne Macartney, Pat Nelson, Nimeshh Patel and Anthony Webb, has opened the doors to its offices in London and New York.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau today announced the release of the final version of its API standards for mobile rich media ads following a comment period. Called MRAID 2.0 (Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definitions), the set of technical specifications is designed to allow agencies to run creative across different mobile applications rather than having to be rewritten for every app or network. The initial MRAID framework was introduced a year ago. “With these new specifications, the IAB Mobile Center aims to encourage and facilitate rich media and creative advertising adoption for mobile ad units,” said Joe Laszlo, senior …

It's Texas State Fair time in Dallas, which means a mess of pickup trucks. Today at 10 a.m., Dodge will do a live web stream of its unveiling there of the new Ram truck line. It's here, in case you're not there: http://www.ramtrucks.com/en/2013/previews/ram_hd_cc/

St. Petersburg, FL-based consumer research and marketing giant Catalina is dramatically expanding its presence in Boston. The company, whose Boston team has been developing personalized digital media marketing technologies for retailers, such as New England's Stop & Shop grocery chain, announced that it will triple the size of its team.

BlueKai has extended its Data Activation System to the mobile realm, allowing marketers to tap into first- and third-party mobile data for ad retargeting. The company launched the system, which combines its Data Exchange and Data Management Platform with its Audience across Media (AxM) media insights tool in July. BlueKai says its expansion to mobile will help fill the analytics gap caused by the lack of traditional browser-based cookies in mobile for tracking and measurement. As part of its effort, the company has also partnered with AdTruth to create a standard for tracking and recognizing audience anonymously across the mobile …

A new eye-tracking study suggests the leaderboard banner is the most likely to command users’ attention regardless of device. The research by Tobii Technology in Sweden and Mediative in Canada found leaderboard ads on the iPad outperformed other units, with people fixated on them 44% longer than the next best ad type. The leaderboard also held users’ attention 22.5% longer on the iPad than on the PC, but the unit was viewed twice as fast on the PC as on the iPad. For both devices, the leaderboard proved the most effective at grabbing people’s attention compared to other display …

The worldwide market for connected devices-PCs, smartphones and tablets--reached 267.3 million units shipped in the second quarter, up 27.4% from a year ago and 2.8% from the first quarter, according to a new IDC estimate. On a revenue basis, the total increased 16.3% to $131.5 billion from a year ago, but fell 2.7% from the prior quarter. In the U.S., rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets has started to slow as overall economic conditions and a degree of saturation begin to affect the market. U.S. shipments of connected devices in Q2 dropped 5% to just under 47.4 million units, …

Yahoo on Tuesday announced Ken Goldman as its new chief financial officer, replacing Tim Morse. Goldman, who has been CFO of threat management technology company Fortinet since 2007, will take start at Yahoo on Oct. 22. Prior to Fortinet, he was CFO of Siebel Systems for six years until the company’s acquisition by Oracle Crop. in 2006. Morse, who served as interim CEO at Yahoo from Sept. 2011 until January 2012 following the firing of Carol Bartz, had been CFO since June 2009.  He will leave the company later this fall. Goldman’s appointment is the latest top management hiring …

Atlantic Media Company today launched Quartz, its new publication geared primarily to tablets mobile phones and aimed at the international business class. Built with HTML5, the mobile Web app doesn’t require download but can be accessed at qz.com across devices and desktop computers. First announced in June, the slick-looking business site is also available via Flipboard and features Boeing, Cadillac, Chevron and Credit Suisse as launch sponsors. The publication debuts with a staff of 20 on the editorial side led by Kevin Delaney, former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Online. The content is organized by sections it …

RedMas, the digital ad unit of the Cisneros Group of Cos. this morning announced the acquisition of Kontextua, an online ad company operating a nework of contextual advertising in Latin America and Spain. The acquisition boosts Cisneros's digital presence in the U.S. Hispanic market and Latin America.