OCR

Patent reveals Google's book-scanning advantage

Sometimes overlooked in the Sturm und Drang about Google Book Search is any consideration of the mechanics of economically scanning the books in the first place, but a patent awarded to Google gives insight into how the search behemoth accomplishes the task.

In short, Google has come up with a system that uses two cameras and infrared light to automatically correct for the curvature of pages in a book. By constructing a 3D model of each page and then "de-warping" it afterward, Google can present flat-looking pages online without having to slice books up or mash them onto a flatbed scanner. … Read more

Scanned documents found...by Google

If you've ever had trouble finding scanned documents on Google, it's probably because it was not indexing them. On Thursday, this all changed. Google has announced that it is now indexing scanned documents.

Google is now able to perform optical character recognition (OCR) on any scanned document it finds stored in the PDF format. OCR technology is able to "read" a scanned document and covert it into words that can be searched and indexed.

OCR technology has always impressed me, I mean deciphering between a "0" and "O" is hard enough for … Read more

Epson announces three new sub-$100 printers

Color lasers, black and white multifunctions, color inkjets, compact photo printers--with a handful of options available to shoppers, the all-in-one (AIO) color inkjet printer is arguably the most functional. The ability to perform multiple functions within the same machine is a useful and convenient feature for the home-office entrepreneur, poor college student, or the everyday home user. Prices for these high-performance machines are affordable across the board. Today, Epson introduced three new AIO printers under $100. Let's take a closer look at the new offerings:

Epson Stylus NX100 Printer, scanner, and fax machine Two ink-cartridge bays with four total … Read more

Featured Freeware: Evernote

Functional, useful, and always on, the note-taking application Evernote goes beyond mere cool program architecture and is also interesting. It's a true three-platform play: it works very well, and somewhat differently, on desktop computers, mobile phones, and over the Web. You can download it for Windows, Mac, and your mobile phone.

One of the cooler features is that when Evernote runs on your camera phone, it will automatically upload your snapshots to the Evernote server, creating a useful archive of them. The killer feature is that it also does OCR on your images so you can find them later … Read more

HP's latest All-In-One printer takes the cake

Putting together a quality multifunction printer is no easy task, and we've seen a fair share of them that drop the ball, but HP's newest challenger, the Officejet J6480, restored our faith in All-in-One printers.

The HP Officejet J6480 spoils users with many features that aren't normally found altogether in one unit: a very reasonable $200 lands you a wireless photo printer with autoduplexing, scanner with optical character recognition technology, a fax

machine, and even a built in autodocument feeder for printing on various types of paper.

We often are asked the question, "what's the … Read more

Get docs from pics with Qipit

Qipit is a free service for turning digital photos into sharable, online documents. It works with any photo taken with a digital camera, or from your mobile phone. Like ScanR (review), Qipit will store and host your photos, and let you rotate them to your heart's content. This works the best with shots of documents taken at an angle, and with whiteboards, business cards, etc. Once uploaded, Qipit will tweak the contrast of your shot, drawing out the text, and doing its best to correct perspective warp. Unlike ScanR however, you're not getting the archival goodness of optical … Read more