Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Princeton, NJ, USA
Posts: 5

What about a visor equipped with scanner? you could scanned the references at the end of a book or http addresses. or if you find an an interesting passage, you could store it in memory for further reading on the train?

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 42

Personally, I think this would be a terrific springboard - it would save so much time in data entry, research, scanning articles/news to read in an idle moment. I wouldn't have thought it would be to difficult to implement in a 'springboard size' package - considering the availability of scanning pens... Just wipe your visor over the text and done!

I wonder whether this could also be used to scan from a <B>PC monitor</B> (I know an older casio organizer used to be able to do this) - imagine how easy it would be to enter html and email addresses into the address book.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Pittsford,NY,USA
Posts: 223

You don't need a scanner to get data from PC apps into the Visor. Just cut and paste to the Desktop app and then hotsync. (I do it all the time with my Pilot.)

(Scanner is a great idea though.)

-Eric

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 42

Certainly the most efficient way - but I use a lot of computers around the place at work, and would only have a cradle at home - and a lot of them are simple VT100 terminals with path results etc. - so hot-syncing isn't really an option.

But paper scanning would be the most useful! Hmmm... the more I think about the idea the more interesting it seems.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 159

I think this is one of the 'dream' Springboards mentioned in an article here on VisorCentral. However, the use it would be put to is not the (great) one suggested on this thread.

If someone builds this, I'll be in line...

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: San Francisco, CA
Posts: 431

I think the Scanner Springboard would be a great idea. I have e-mailed InnoGear to tell them this. If you're interested in one, you may want to e-mail them too.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Lewisburg, PA
Posts: 56

i'd love it too; especially if it is big enough to do a businees card. maybe with a little wheelie to roll it thru straight.

also would be great for copying snippets of info from almost anywhere.

all we need now is a enhanced addressbook to support photos of the people and business cards too.

even better; have the desktop software do OCR automattically and return the text only data back to the palm :-)



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Tom Alphin III - [email protected] - www.students.bucknell.edu/alphin/

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 42

Hmmmm.... I hadn't considered business cards - so many uses... I particularly like the idea of being able to scan in snippets from articles etc., or lab results.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Princeton, NJ, USA
Posts: 5

hey, the photo idea is great. being able to scan pictures or photographs for downloading onto the PC and then apply adobe photoshop and print out.

what about a handheld video camcorder/digital camera? the idea might be a bit far-fetched now but who knows, hardware devices have been shrinking in size since their advent. you don't always lug around a camera to capture moments.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Cupertino, CA, USA
Posts: 7

The camera idea is good though you are working on a 160X160 screen so you might not be so impressed by the results. I would guess that the guys who made the gameboy camera would be able to effortlessly do this port ( I KNOW the Visor is not a toy, etc, etc ... )
Also, there is the CardScan from Corex. I would guess that those guys would be better equipped to do a CardScan springboard, maybe an all purpose scanner with the CardScan software addon.
In any which way the Scanner springboard would be a great product.

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Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Lewisburg, PA
Posts: 56

quick question; is a businees card's skinny side thicker or thinner than a springboard. i think atleast to me that is the key to it's success, as you can seel it to businees people; otherwise; it would still be cool; especially for students or anyone who does alot of research; but we all know how hard it is to get a good scan with a non-auto fed scanner, or a flatbed.

we'll see.

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Tom Alphin III - [email protected] - www.students.bucknell.edu/alphin/

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 42

How big is OCR software? To scan in text would be a great addition to a PDA, but I would generally want to manipulate that text immediately. Would OCR software fit on a palm/visor?

I hear that wonderful refrain: put it on a springboard module!

M.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 42

I read somewhere that the Palm III series (and hence the Visor) has the equivalent processing power of a 16Mhz 386sx - probably not a completely accurate comparison, but a nice ball-park figure.

I wouldn't have thought that that would be enough for serious OCR, but for business cards and small snippets of text I'm sure that someone could come up with a little bit of code that could handle it - and I guess for a scanner springboard to actually be useful, OCR is pretty important (otherwise even that 8Mb would dissapear pretty quickly!)

Okay, so who are we going to get to build this thing?