For the second year in a row, Hyundai Auto Canada Corp is producing a TV spot for Canadian viewers during the Super Bowl. The company says 14 million Canadians are expected to watch and 50% of Canadian households tune-in for the Super Bowl commercials as much as the game itself. Canadian viewers have watch current Canadian TV commercials, though, instead of the American ones.

A special interest group formed by the standards body NFC Forum now supports the retail industry through a little embedded chip in phones that allows Google to process electronic payments through Wallet, a virtual credit and debit card app.

More and more evidence suggests the tablet is displacing the smartphone as the device of choice for m-commerce. A recent eMarketer report estimated purchases made through tablets last year easily outpaced those on smartphones, by nearly $14 billion to about $10 billion, even though tablets have far less penetration to date. New research today from ABI Research indicates 22% of U.S. tablets users spend $50 or more per month and 9% spend $100 or more on their devices—much higher levels than smartphone owners. “Tablets are quickly becoming the go-to transaction screen within the home,” says mobile devices senior practice …

"Katie," the first year syndication talk show hosted by Katie Couric,  gained 30% over its average seasonal rating for its highly touted interview with Manti Te'o, the Notre Dame football player. It improved to 3.5 million in total viewers and a Nielsen 2.6 household rating/7share. Te'o has been in the middle of an online hoax involving his nonexistent girlfriend.The show was 17% better than "Katie"'s previously high, a show about medical mysteries, which took in 3 million viewers.  

AT&T on Thursday reported a narrower fourth-quarter loss, with pension-related expenses and costs related to Superstorm Sandy holding down earnings in the year-end period. The telecom giant posted a loss of $3.9 billion, or 68 cents a share, compared to a loss of $6.7 billion, or $1.12 a share, a year ago. On an adjusted basis, AT&T had earnings of 44 cents per share. Revenue rose 0.2% to $32.6 billion in the quarter. Analysts, on average, had forecast a profit of 45 cents per share on revenue of $32. 2 billion. AT&T said it sold a record 10.2 million …

New research from Nielsen suggests U.S. Hispanics have a greater interest in accessing social media for customer service than the general population using social media. Specifically, Latinos on social sites are 21% more likely than average to use what Nielsen calls “social care.” More than half (57%) have asked a question or voiced a complaint to a brand or company via Facebook, Twitter or other sites compared to 47% of the general population. Hispanics also turn to social media more frequently for customer help, with 19% doing so on a daily basis, 30% weekly, 16% a few times a …

Digital audience targeting firm Collective is among the latest companies to plug its ad technology into the Facebook Ad Exchange (FBX). Through Collective on Facebook, clients will be able to apply its data and audience-targeting tools to FBX campaigns as part of broader digital ad buys. “With the addition of Facebook Exchange, Collective further eliminates silos associated with channels such as social, TV, and display, resulting in less audience duplication and better attribution,” stated a company page dedicated to FBX. The company says clients can use Collective on Facebook to control reach and frequency across Facebook and existing display …

Extole execs said the social platform company closed a $7.6 million funding round, bringing total investments to $29.6 million. It plans to use the investment to accelerate product and platform investments. Investors include Shasta Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and Trident Capital. The funding comes on the heels of a record year for growth in bookings and customer acquisitions. Extole recently began supporting eHarmony, Spotify, Cache, Seventh Generation and HSN Improvements.

Despite record gains, sales of Apple’s signature devices during the holiday quarter fell just below analysts’ estimates, as did the tech giant’s revenue for the period. Apple on Wednesday reported selling 47.8 million iPhones in its fiscal first quarter, up 29% from 37 million a year ago. Sales of iPads increased to 22.9 million units, a 49% gain from 15.4 million in the year-earlier period. But analysts had forecast sales of about 46 to 50 million iPhone and 23 to 24 million iPads. Sales of the iPad Mini, launched in October, weren't broken out, but Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer …

The Los Angeles Dodgers said Walton Isaacson (WI) has been named the team's advertising and marketing agency of record for 2013. WI will report to EVP and CMO, Los Angeles Dodgers, Lon Rosen. Guggenheim Partners, a privately held global financial services firm, which acquired the team last year.