SAN FRANCISCO: Payments company Square has informed US regulators privately that it is exploring going public with a stock market debut, according to reports on Friday. The mobile payments and financial services startup launched by Twitter Co-founder Jack Dorsey is stealthily looking into an initial public offering of stock. He’s doing so under legislation that lets young, growing firms secretly begin the process if they bring in less than a billion dollars in annual revenue, media reports said.

Thermostats removed

BANGALORE: Apple Inc said it had removed Nest Labs’ internet-connected thermostats from its US online and retail stores, a year after the home automation maker was bought by Google Inc for $3.3 billion. Nest, led by the ‘godfather’ of iPod Tony Fadell, earned plaudits for its thermostat — a round, brushed-metal device with a convex glass screen that displays temperature and changes hue to match the colour of the wall it attaches to. “We regularly make changes to our merchandise mix in stores,” Apple Spokesman Nick Leahy said in an e-mail on Friday. However, checks by Reuters showed that the product was still available in Apple’s online stores in some countries, including the UK, France and Ireland.