You know those scanners implemented by the TSA that can see through your clothing? They utilize terahertz (THz) radiation and it turns out that this could literally “unzip” the DNA molecule. And now they’re thinking of implementing the technology in mobile devices.

Fitting somewhere between microwaves and infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum, the terahertz wave is able to penetrate through porous material like clothing and wood, allowing the TSA security personnel to see if you’re hiding something in your underwear. It could also be used by medical professionals to find small tumors without invasive surgery or, in a more novel sense, for consumers to get “X-ray vision” like Superman.

But all is not well. Dr. Boian Alexandrov is a researcher at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory and he has found that terahertz waves destroy human DNA, unzipping the helix strand. This could cause sickness, cancer or even death. To make matters worse, Dr. Kenneth O, director of the Texas Analog Center of Excellence and a professor of electrical engineering, University of Texas at Dallas have developed a CMOS chip for mobile phones that broadcast THz waves, giving cell phones radiation imaging capabilities. It sounds cool, but could be dangerous.

“CMOS is affordable and can be used to make lots of chips,” Dr. O said. “The combination of CMOS and terahertz means you could put this chip and a transmitter on the back of a cellphone, turning it into a device carried in your pocket that can see through objects.”  Due to privacy concerns, Dr. O and his team are focused on uses in the distance range of less than four inches.

Clearly, more research is warranted.

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Barcodes? Who needs barcodes? A new scanner has been developed by Toshiba Tec that can recognize the various objects that you place in front of it, including a variety of produce. What this means is that the cashier doesn’t have to look up the code for that honeydew, banana, or orange. The camera-based scanner just recognizes it and charges you accordingly.

The scanner can also be used to recognize conventional barcodes on the various other items that your supermarket may carry, but the primary application here is for fresh produce. This can make the checkout process a heck of a lot faster, especially if the cashier isn’t familiar with all the product codes or can’t tell the difference between a Fuji apple and a Mutsu apple.

What helps is that the camera blacks out all the background information, eliminating all that distracting information that may otherwise interfere with the object recognition. Then, the software can better see the subtle differences in color, gradient, and so on to differentiate between the different produce items. Toshiba says that it will develop a growing database that can then be sent to the supermarkets directly.

[Source]

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It appears like those of you out there who are fond of carrying a weapon are going to have a tough time doing that. The New York Police Department has just announced a new project which involves the developing of a portable scanner that can remotely detect a concealed weapon on a body.  As you know, frisking someone who is carrying a lethal weapon is certainly a dangerous duty for police officers, especially if that person is not happy about getting arrested. But officers from NYPD (and most probably other departments as well, later on) won’t have to worry about it for too long.  The NYPD started working on the portable scanner three years ago after teaming up with the United States Department of Defense.  The device makes use of infrared light rays to image radiation that is coming from a person’s body. If the person is carrying a metal object such as a gun, it will prevent the rays from reaching the part of the body where the object is. This will result in the appearance of an outline of that object on the scanner.  At the moment, the device is capable of detecting weapons from a distance of about one meter. But they are expecting to increase its range to at least 25 meters. They are planning to mount it on a police vehicle for using it on suspects, and frisking will be avoided.  One day in the future it will probably be in HUDs.

[ source ]

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Nowadays, keeping a scanned copy of an important document in your tablet has become very useful. But, where is a scanner when you need it the most? What you want is the iConvert which turns your iPad tablet into a scanning station.

The iConvert features a front feeder which can be adjusted from 2 inches to 8½ inches wide, so that you will be able to fit many important papers and photos into it. You just have to place your iPad on the scanner and you will get step-by-step prompts such as “scan”, “save” or “delete”.

It is capable of scanning in high-resolution 300dpi and converts hard copies to JPEG files. You will be able to access the e-copies from your tablet’s picture folder. The device works with the OCR app which is available for free at iTunes App Store and it fits easily into your backpack.

It can be put to use at your home for scanning those old photos and greeting cards, or at the office for saving signed documents and resumes, or on the go to make e-copies of receipts and expense reports.

The iConvert will be available on sale in the coming month with a price tag of $150 and begins shipping February 1, 2012 from Brookstone.

Alternatively, there’s the Visioneer Mobility which stores images directly on to your SD card, and the $250 Wi-Fi scanning Xerox that will send your documents to the cloud.  Both of which work standalone.

The post iConvert Scanner Scans Paper To Your iPad Photos Folder appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Why this hasn’t been done sooner is beyond me, but Visioneer has just changed the face of mobile document scanning with their “Visioneer Mobility” scanner. On the outside it looks like your plain old mobile USB scanner, but no, Mobility really means mobility. You don’t even need a computer to use this scanner. Just pop in an SD card, (1GB included) and begin to feed it reams of documents you’d like digitized. The Department of Homeland Security will fear this, WikiLeaks style extraction of confidential documents can be made without a computer. You’ll have to wait until March to get your hands on one, priced at $200 a full page can be had in 10 seconds flat.

[Visioneer]

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Fujitsu makes an assortment of different scanners for various purposes, and their ScanSnap line has now gone ultra-portable with news of the one-inch think S1100. It will cost you just $225, weighing a mere 12.3 ounces, and takes a single USB to power and OCR your paper mess until your Google Docs account is full.

The S1100 is a single sided scanner; unlike the S1300 I reviewed back in May which supports duplex scanning but comes in at more than 3x the size and weight (0.77lb/350g) that the S1100 does. Software appears to be the fantasticlly functional Fujitsu ScanSnap software I’ve grown to love. Stay tuned for a full review coming soon. If you’re at CES check out the Fujitsu booth for your own hands-on action.

[Fujitsu]

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Canon Imageformula P-150 Mobile Scanner - Photo: Mobile Magazine

The Canon Imageformula P-150 is the latest mobile scanner from Canon.  It sells for under $300 online, and can scan at duplex up to 20 sheets per sitting.  A perfect portable scanning companion for your mobile office.   Definitely compact in size, light-weight and measuring only 11 x 3.7 x 1.6-inches, the P-150 is thin enough to slip in your laptop bag or rucksack.  The shiny piano black finish gives off a “high-end” expensive look, but marks up and requires the white glove treatment.   The expandable paper tray alignment hopper folds out like a Transformer and can be adjusted to the exact size you need it to be.   Document feeding alignment was excellent, it stayed on course all throughout the process.

Power and connectivity are supplied by dual usb-ports.  It can run off a single port – just slower – two ports are ideal.  An AC adapter can also remove your dependence on the dual port situation, but the adapter costs extra.   The P-150 will scan documents in width from as little as 2-inches (business cards) to 8.5-inches, and 2.7-inches up to 14-inches in length.  This means legal paper size is supported.

Maximum scanning resolutions are 24-bit color at 600dpi.  The following scan times were achieved in the test:

8.5×11 double sided 15 seconds 300dpi 24bit
8.5×11 single sided 73 seconds 600dpi 24bit
8.5×11 single sided 11 seconds 150dpi greyscale
10 page stack single side 150dpi greyscale 34 seconds
100% Crop Magazine Ad Scan (3.09MB)

At only 2.1 pounds and measuring 11-inches wide, the compactness of Canon’s P-150 is what will appeal to many users.  Scan times are quick, resolution is sharp and the ADF (automatic document feeder) had very little trouble in alignment with various paper stocks.  This is important, especially in a professional environment, when speed is critical and you don’t want the signatory page of your contract feeding on an angle and getting mangled by the rollers.

Canon P-150 mobile scanner

I found software was its major downfall. Canon has recently added Mac OS X drivers to the product family, however Windows was only available at the time of the test.  The CaptureOnTouch  software lacked the ability to customize multiple scanning presets for later use.  Canon could have invested a little more time in this department.  Twain and Isis drivers however do let you use other supported scanning applications, but it’s nice to have a more versatile package straight out of the box.

Bottom Line
Windows, Mac and Linux support is a bonus.  The size and design are very appealing and matches the traditional IBM Thinkpad look that many mobile business users have grown accustomed to.  Software, if not using third-party applications could be a deal breaker for many.  No wall power adapter included, USB or nothing – which is fine for most mobile users.

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Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 Mobile Scanner

Just because you want to have enterprise level functionality doesn’t mean that your equipment needs to be monumental in stature. Taking the scale down a notch or three is the new Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300. It’s touted as the world’s smallest cross-platform document scanner.

Now available from Fujitsu Canada, the ScanSnap S1300 represents the company’s next generation in mobile multi-page scanning, but in a package that is easily portable for business professionals on the go. It is fully compatible with both PC and Mac environments too.

Taking the strengths behind the original ScanSnap S300 series, the ScanSnap S1300 offers automatic quality selection, a “mark text” function, ABBYY FineRader for ScanSnap, grayscale support, and long document support (up to 34-inches long). It comes with a large suite of software to boot.

For speeds, you can expect to get up to eight double-sided color pages per minute and an automatic document feeder that’ll hold up to 10 pages at a time. The one-button searchable PDF converts scanned data into searchable PDF files and the automatic de-skew minimizes “tilted” documents.

“ScanSnap has become well known for its simplicity and user friendliness. With the ScanSnap S1300, we have added even more scanning functionality and platform flexibility while maintaining its ease of use.” said Steve Oblin, product marketing manager at Fujitsu Canada. “Business professionals with a Windows system in the office and a Mac system at home can now scan their contracts, receipts, bills and business cards with the same scanner in both environments.”

The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 is available now for $325. You can bump up to the “Deluxe” model for $50 more, gaining access to the Rack-2-Filer software.

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Full color scans are about 28 seconds and the black and white scans only takes 4 seconds.  Power is drawn from 2AA batteries. 

The price tag on this little scanner is $99.99, a bit much but quite convenient for its size.

The post VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand portable scanner scans B&W pages in 4 seconds appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Even though many of us have moved on to a largely digital experience, physical pieces of paper (including business cards) are still in heavy use. We still need scanners and the MobileOffice D28 seems to suit the job.

Features and Specifications

Designed to be a compact solution at less than 4-inches by 12-inches, the MobileOffice D28 still doesn’t come up short in the features department. The effective resolution may only be 600dpi, but that should be suitable for the vast majority of business documents and the like.

Other highlights include the color CIS image sensor, single pass scanning, 28 pages per minute scanning speed, full OCR text recognition software, TWAIN technology, duplex support, and a compact easy-to-carry design.

Inside the box, you get the scanner itself, the power cable, a USB cable, supporting documentation, cleaning cloth, calibration sheets, and installation CD. For the sake of portability, I would have liked to see this Plustek scanner have the option of powering from a USB connection alone, but you do require a wall outlet for its operation.

First Impressions and Build Quality

Some people don’t have giant desks in the middle of corner offices. Some of us deal with smaller desks that we’d like, so we need to have electronics that suit these smaller dimensions. In addition to its small size, the Plustek MobileOffice D28 comes with one other major advantage.

The paper feeds in from the front after you flip down the front flap, but you have a choice how your paper feeds out of the back. The sheets can feed through horizontally like how you’d expect them, but you can also adjust the back portion so that the paper rotates 90-degrees and is sent out vertically.

This way, you can have the scanner placed almost right up to the wall, pushed out of the way. This works for regular letter and legal documents. The Plustek D28 will also handle business cards, plastic cards (like credit cards), payment cheques, and more.

The build quality appears to be up to par for the course. It seems that Plustek may have used a slightly cheaper plastic than I would have liked and there is some “give” at the seams, but I don’t have any concerns about it falling apart in any way.

One of the smaller features that I liked on this scanner is that it “grabbed” the sheet of paper when I fed it in through the front. It would pull in the sheet just a smidge, holding it place so that it could be ready for scanning. This way, you don’t have to hold it in place before hitting the scan button.

Setting Up to Nine Preset Scans

Looking at the simple on-device user interface, you see three buttons. One is for simplex (one-sided) scanning, another for duplex (two-sided), and a third that cycles through a series of numbers. If this were a copier, you’d assume that this was for the number of copies.

These numbers are not for that purpose, however. Instead, they correspond to up to nine preset configurations that you can define within the provided software. You might have one preset to work with OCR, another to feed out black-and-white PDF files, and so on.

The OCR seems to work very well and, in its basic form, will output a simple text file. Using the software, you can set up grayscale/color, simplex/duplex, and other options. Thankfully, a small sticker is provided to help you remember which setting is for what purpose.

Conclusion

Don’t let its relatively diminutive stature confuse you. The Plustek Mobile Office D28 is just as powerful a scanner as its larger and more expensive counterparts. The OCR works beautifully and I like the ability to define up to nine different setting schemes that are quickly accessed without fumbling through a menu each time.

The compact size is a definite plus and having the ability to have the forms feed out vertically helps to save even more space. The build quality still leaves something to be desired and the price (about $300) may scare off some people who are more accustomed to $100 all-in-ones, but the software really makes this is a strong outing for Plustek.

Overall Rating: 8.0/10

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