card.io, a California-based company that enables mobile developers to capture credit card information within their apps by using the camera on a smartphone, has been acquired by PayPal.

The two companies worked together on the PayPal Here mobile app, which enables business owners to take payments via their mobile phone or tablet.

Pointing and waving your hands are set to become widely-used ways of interacting with mobile phones, according to a new study from ABI Research.

It says the detection of vision-based gestures - physical movements identified by a camera or other sensors - will offer an additional input method for 600 million smartphones in 2017.

Mark Bridge writes:

Every so often, I see a new product that I’d like to review. I’ll usually send a note to the relevant company, borrow a review copy and send it back when I’ve finished.

And every so often I’ll be approached by a company that wants me to review a product. Sometimes I’ll say yes, sometimes I’ll say no. It all depends whether or not I think I’m the right person for the job.

When IntSig offered me a copy of a mobile application called CamScanner, I wasn’t too sure. It seemed very clever... but I wasn’t convinced I’d have much use for it.

A new report from O2 has revealed that the average smartphone owner now spends more than 2 hours a day using their phone.

However, voice calls aren’t the main priority for these consumers. 74% of smartphone users use their handsets to take photos, with 71% using their phones for calls. And more time is spent on mobile internet browsing than making phone calls.

Fujitsu Laboratories says it’s developing a technology to record stereoscopic 3D images by using a special attachment that fits over the lens of standard mobile phones.

More details will be announced at the International Symposium on Consumer Electronics in the USA next month.