We live in a digital age, so why do business cards refuse to die? They're a hassle to store and an environmental suck to produce. Plus, who among us has time to manually transcribe contact info into a phone, PDA, or PC?
Needless to say, I was geeked to try Business Card Reader, a $5.99 app that turns business cards into iPhone Address Book entries.
Specifically, BCR leverages your iPhone's camera to take a snapshot of a card, then uses built-in optical character recognition (OCR) to convert the image into text and populate the appropriate contact fields.
After snapping a photo, Business Card Reader scans the card and adds the data to a new contact.
That's the theory, anyway. In practice, BCR requires near-perfect lighting conditions and decidedly non-fancy cards to achieve reliable recognition.
Make no mistake: This is a terrific app, one I'd absolutely buy despite its limitations; it's just that handy. But let's not overlook those limitations.
For starters, it requires an iPhone 3GS. Older models lack the autofocus capabilities necessary for sharp close-ups (though you might be able to get by with one of those third-party macro lenses).
Next, while BCR does a decent job identifying names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers, in my tests it rarely got the company name right. Likewise, if a name included a middle initial, it placed that initial in the Last Name field and ignored the actual last name altogether.
It's also a challenge to get sufficient lighting while avoiding glare off the card itself--particularly if it's a glossy card. And what with all the fancy logos, layouts, and color schemes these days, it's no wonder BCR encounters its share of difficulties.
That said, when it works well, it's a thing of beauty, and it's a lot faster and easier to edit a few OCR mistakes than it is to manually enter the information.
I also like the app's option to look up a contact on LinkedIn and/or merge the scanned card data with an existing iPhone contact. Plus, it recognizes not only English, but also French, German, Italian, and Spanish.
Another perk: the Card Holder view, which stores the actual scans in a slick-looking mock-leather "holder."
Business Card Reader may not be perfect, but it's about $150 less than a dedicated bizcard scanner--and it works right on your iPhone.
Have you found another card-scanning app you like better? If so, hit the comments and tell me about it!
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:
- Printer, scanner, and fax machine
- Two ink-cartridge bays with four total colors
- Uses DURABrite Ultra Ink for smudge, fade, water and highlighter resistance
- One-touch color copying
- Maximum 5760 x 1440 dpi print resolution
- $69.99
- Printer, scanner, and fax machine
- Prints up to 32 pages per minute (reportedly)
- Built-in memory-card slots and PictBridge port
- 48-bit color, 1200 x 2400 dpi scanning
- Auto-Photo Correction preloaded into driver
- $79.99
- Printer, scanner, and fax machine
- 30 page auto-document feeder (ADF)
- Enlarge images up to 400 percent
- Optical Character Recognition software included with scanner
- Prints up to 31 pages per minute of black text
- $89.99
All three printers in the NX series are available for purchase now on Epson's Web site. Check back for in-depth reviews coming soon.
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 best multifunction printer for my (company's) hard earned dollar? Right now, our two favorites are the J6480 and the Canon Pixma MX7600. The former will appeal to offices on a budget, but if you'd like a more detailed control panel for editing photos and can get your hands on an extra $200, you should definitely spring for the MX7600.
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