Yannick LeJacq

Square, the new rising star of Silicon Valley founded and lead by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, closed a $200 million fundraising round on Monday that now places the start-up's value at $3.25 billion. The privately-held San Francisco based company hopes to establish itself as the go-to mobile wallet in a growing industry of digital payment systems that all seek to turn smartphones into people's primary means of transaction.

The privately-held Finnish game developer Rovio Entertainment has secured a comfortable spot for itself on top of the freemium food chain with its legendary line of Angry Birds mobile apps, a series of mobile games that's been downloaded over 1 billion times and attracted merchandizing spin-offs as diverse gummy candy and real-life theme parks. Now after several sequels (the most recent propelling birds into orbit with Angry Birds: Space), Rovio is seeking greener pastures wit...

GREE (TYO:3632), Japan's $4.7 billion online media giant and regional rival to U.S.-based internet companies like Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) and Zynga Inc. (Nasdaq: ZNGA) stepped further into America soil on Monday with another developer acquisition, this time of California-based mobile game developer App Ant Studios.

Freemium video games like "FarmVille 2" and "Angry Birds," the cheap and easily accessible counterpart to premium boxed copies of "Skyrim" or "Call of Duty" that run players upwards of $50 or $60 a sale, now make up more than half of the total market for video games in Europe, a new study shows.

Tensions between Zynga Inc. (Nasdaq: ZNGA) and Electronic Arts Inc. (Nasdaq: EA) exploded all over again Friday as Zynga mustered an aggressive rejoinder to the copyright-infringement lawsuit filed against it by EA last month.

Occupy Wall Street are planning to return in force to New York City's Financial District, hoping to recapture momentum.

As traditional video games companies like Electronic Arts and Activision Vision struggle to find their way in the free-to-play Internet-based gaming environment, "freemium" companies like Zynga and Kixeye continue to seek the new Holy Grail: monetizing online games.

After seeing the unprecedented success of a title like "Fifty Shades of Grey," casual readers and publishing industry analysts alike were led to wonder what the future of digital publishing held for the book industry as Amazon Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) continues to edge out traditional publishing houses and retailers alike with its aggressive competitive pricing scheme. In an email sent to literary agents unearthed by GigaOM on Thursday, Amazon Publishing Vice President Jeff Belle revealed some ...

Following its latest round of departures and continued erratic performance at the stock market, Zynga's future prospects have been looking increasingly bleak. Critics and industry analysts actually began counting the number of high-profile employees and executives left at the San Francisco-based social game developer, leading many to wonder how exactly the company hoped to recover from its current financial dilemma. On Thursday, the company finally offered up some details when it confirmed th...

Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) experienced a brief respite this week following several weeks of dismal business prospects and plummeting share prices. Launching an initial beta mode of its new advertising system known as Facebook Exchange Facebook Exchange (FBX), advertising partners revealed good news that might finally reverse the SanFrancisco-based social media giant's post-IPO fortunes: Facebook is now better at gathering advertising clicks from web users than its fellow internet giant and chief r...

Steve Wozniak, the programmer and computer engineer who helped launch what would later become Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), didn't have the best things to say about his former company when the subject of Apple's recent legal battle with Samsung (KRX:005930) came up, even as he expressed his anticipation for purchasing the new iPhone 5. Speaking to Bloomberg about Wednesday's launch of the highly anticipated iPhone 5 unveiling, Wozniak praised the iPhone 5, but also commented on the recent ...

Shares of Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) jumped Wednesday during its highly anticipated unveiling of a host of new high-profile software and hardware products, including the iPhone 5, in San Francisco.

Apple revealed the long-anticipated iTunes 11 at its press conference today, highlighting new features that update the available cloud media services along with a sleek redesign of the media player itself. The announced changes largely focused on greater integration between different Apple mobile devices and computers, complete with a fully integrated iCloud service.

In his first public appearance following his social media company's disastrous IPO in May, Mark Zuckerberg's address at Tuesday's TechCrunch Disrupt helped boost the shares price of Facebook's (Nasdaq: FB) close partner Zynga (Nasdaq: ZNGA), which has retained its prominence on the social network's app marketplace despite continuing financial woes and a seemingly endless round of executive departures. Zynga reached a recent stock high in mid-morning morning trading on Wednesday, f...

Always a fan of user-generated content and community-oriented software development, Valve Corp. released the list for its first round of independent games from its new "Steam Greenlight" program on Wednesday. Titles include "Black Mesa," "Cry of Fear," "Dream," "Heroes & Generals," and "Kenshi," all of which ranked at the top of the community's most popular titles on the new Greenlight platform.

Google Inc. and Boingo Wireless Inc., made another bold move Tuesday to position themselves as a prominent resource for wireless services by establishing another 4,000 mobile hotspots across the United States. As a promotional event to advertise the new expanded partnership with the companies are also making Wi-Fi free in all the new locations "through the end of September," Boingo said in a statement.

Amazon.com Inc. is reversing its decision announced just last week with the unveiling of its new HD line of Kindle Fires to supplement the devices' low cost with ad-based support. In a statement emailed to the press, Amazon said that it will now give customers the option to opt out of advertisements for a premium price of $15. The decision reflects a growing need to slash hardware prices and monetize users in other, more creative ways in what is becoming a fiercely competitive tablet marketpl...

Zynga., creator of popular social and mobile games like "FarmVille" and "Words with Friends," is losing its chief marketing and revenue officer, Jeff Karp, the second executive departure in as many days.

Following a slew of announcements about Valve Corporation expanding beyond game development and distribution into general software and hardware possibilities, Steam is officially releasing a beta version of its "Big Picture Mode" today. Showing a sleek and innovative approach to a television-based user interface, the new version of Steam raises questions about the future of PC game development.

Toys ''R'' Us is introducing a tablet for children, and the new product will not be available online. The Tabeo, as the new tablet is called, can be pre-ordered over the Internet but it is only available in Toys "R" Us stores.

Following reports earlier this week of Apple allowing hackers into its iCloud service, Sony Corportation is facing similar concerns over the security of its data across everything from its mobile-phone business to its new mobile gaming console, the Playstation Vita. In addition to piracy concerns, the new hacks highlight the relative weakness of the PS Vita's performance so far in the gaming market.

Sportman's Elite, a local sporting goods retailer that sells firearms and hunting equipment in El Paso, Texas, will be giving away a handgun to one of its Facebook fans once the page reaches 300 "likes."

Employment in the U.S. private sector increased by 201,000 jobs – a greater addition than originally forecast for the month of August, according to an ADP study released Thursday. Employment in the U.S. private sector increased by 201,000 jobs – a greater addition than originally forecast for the month of August, according to an ADP study released Thursday.

Ubisoft Entertainment announced on Wednesday that it is abandoning its always-online digital rights management (DRM) practices for PC games, ending a long battle between the software publisher and its critics and consumers over the controversial anti-piracy measure.

McDonald's Corporation (NYSE:MCD), the US-based fast-food restaurant chain headquartered in Illinois long known for its beef-based burgers of all shapes and sizes announced plans on Tuesday to open its first ever vegetarian-exclusive restaurants in India.

The Sphero is a new kind of toy that tries to blend virtual gaming with physical toys in what its creators call "mixed reality." But before it does that, co-creator Ian Bernstein wants users to become more friendly with their machines.

The Bank of Spain announced on Friday that capital outflow from the country had increased by almost 40 percent in June 2012.

Electronic Arts Inc. said in a statement Thursday that "Madden NFL 13," the latest iteration of its iconic football video game franchise, sold about 900,000 in its first 24 hours on retail shelves. Citing "internal estimates," EA said the sale was a 7 percent increase from last year's launch, making it the highest-performing launch title for the franchise for the console generation.

Following the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) predictions of the imminent "fiscal cliff" that will send the U.S. economy into a recession after January 1, 2013, analysts are struggling to identity the true extent of the oncoming threat. While the CBO estimates that unemployment will increase to about 9 percent in the fallout from proposed "fiscal tightening" measures, Capital Economics suggested in a U.S. Employment Report published today that the effect on hiring may be more ...