Posted on 02/12/2005 6:52:05 AM PST by samsonite
It's a concept the fictional spy Maxwell Smart would adore: the means to transform the diminutive camera in your cell phone into a portable document scanner.
Imagine discreetly photographing contracts, notes jotted on a whiteboard or other handwritten information while on a research mission or a sales call, and later converting them into a format for processing, either in hard copy or on your computer.
That's what scientists at Xerox Research Centre Europe in Grenoble, France, envisioned when they developed mobile document-imaging software, which should reach the market later this year.
The technology works with camera phones that have a resolution of at least 1 megapixel to create digital images of documents or presentations. It checks and corrects for blurriness and shadows, then compresses the image into a file that can be transmitted to a fax machine, to another phone or to a computer via a multimedia messaging service--MMS--or Bluetooth wireless technology. The images can be printed later.
"When we give it to test users, they appreciate it easily," said Christopher Dance, senior scientist and image-processing manager at Xerox Research Centre Europe. "Even the simplest of applications--just sharing the documents and storing the documents you have captured. You could even handwrite a message and send it to someone's phone."
Xerox is talking with potential licensees through its licensing agent, IPValue Management. The technology, which is patented, could find its way into users' hands by midyear. Among potential licensees are handset manufacturers, wireless carriers and developers of document management software.
The Xerox software works in a four-step process. To create an image of an 8.5-inch by 11-inch piece of paper, you have to hold the camera roughly one foot away from the document and photograph it.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.com ...
From the French huh? No wonder no one trust these Frogs. Always looking for a way to steal.
Watched an old James Bond flick last weekend. Bond was in the bad guy's office, scanning and copying documents. The gadgets that he used to make the copies had to literally be brought to the window with a construction crane. How things have changed.
MAX: "Would you believe??????......"
I'm sorry, this is the headline of next year's papers.
You do know that Ret. Gen. Franks is part of a group advocating GPS in teenagers cell Phones? The technology is there, but public support is not. So they are getting a General to push it on the kids for their safety!!
What film was that? In the ones I remember James Bond had a tiny pocket camera.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service, with George Lazenby as James Bond.
I'll have to rewatch that. Not sure why they'd need anything so big, though, unless they were doing a WHOLE LOT of documents (and needed auto-feeding etc.). Otherwise film stocks existed that would have provided legible (if somewhat hard to read) resolution at 16mm size. A 400' roll of 16mm film would be about 7" diameter and would hold 16,000 frames. If James Bond brought sufficiently bright lights, 8mm film might have sufficed; a Super 8 camera [I think they'd just been released] that was adapted for single-frame use would be less bulky than a 16mm, and each 50' cartridge would hold 3,600 frames. If Super 8 weren't yet out, Double 8mm would allow 4,000 frames per 25' roll, but changing rolls would be much less convenient.
"On Her Majesty's Secret Service, with George Lazenby as James Bond."
Lazenby was a much better Bond than Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan.
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