Need a portable scanner? How about your smartphone?
June 18, 2010 by Steve HannafordPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, New Products
Some apps add yet another use for that little device in your pocket that can do just about anything.
Here’s a plot idea for the next James Bond movie. Instead of taking out a one-of-kind minicamera — supplied by Q and hidden in a cigarette lighter or sunglasses case — to take snaps of the villain’s master plan or blueprint, James will just whip out his iPhone or Android (depending on who ponies up for the product placement).
Then using an app called DocScanner, he’ll capture the document image, digitize it, upload it to a Google Docs account, where it can be digitized with OCR, and send it off to MI6 headquarters for analysis.
DocScanner has actually been around for a few years, but new software and enhanced hardware have made it more useful than ever. It makes use of these smartphones’ built-in camera and intuitive touch controls to make scanning on the go an easy task. The one complaint has been the low resolution of the scan due to limited resolution of the camera unit and the need to hold the smartphone around18 inches away for proper focus.
But that issue has a solution. There are a number of magnifying lenses available for these phones — for example, the Clarifi protective case with close-up lens that you can slide into place when you need it. This allows for a 4-inch focus and correspondingly a very sharp image.
In addition, the new iPhone 4 has a 5 megapixel camera built in, a big step up from the 3 megapixel 3GS, and likelier to yield sharp images.
Obviously, serious document scanner makres like Canon and Fujitsu have little to fear. But for personal scanning (think receipts and business cards), this is a great solution.
Here’s a video shoeing how the DocScanner app works.
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Tags: Clarifi, DocScanner, smartphone
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