scanR
Have you ever gone to hit the print button on the electronic whiteboard only to find that it's broken or it's run out of paper? All your clever work is there but the only way to record it is to write it all down in long-hand. ScanR is the answer to saving your scribbling efforts. It's an application that sits on your mobile phone, enabling you to use it to take a picture of the white board and upload the picture to scanR, which then processes your photograph. You get back the original image, a scanned version that is cleaned up and converted to black and white and a version converted into text. You can access these through the website or have them emailed to your account or sent to a fax. It also does the same thing for business cards or documents.
WHO WOULD USE IT?
This is a great tool for those of you who are out of the office a lot. The system allows you to capture information through your mobile phone and then get it delivered electronically in a variety of forms. If the image is clear enough, scanR will convert the image into text. For example if you can provide a clear photograph of a business card, scanR can convert that into a vCard that you can download from the website and import directly into Outlook. It saves having to carry around all those cards from people you have met.
Check your model of cameraphone at
http://www.checkmycameraphone.com/ to see if it should work well with scanR. You can download a test pattern to print and try an upload with, although good scores with the test don't necessarily mean good results with business cards.
WALK THROUGH
You start by setting up an account at the scanR website (
https://www.scanr.com/). This is easy but your account won't be activated until you have sent in a picture from your phone or by email. So the next thing to do is to download the application for your phone.
I went to
www.scanr.com/download.aspx, downloaded it onto my PC and then loaded the application onto my phone. Once you have sent in an image, the site will supply you with a code that you use to activate your account. When your account is active, you start the application on the phone and enter your account login details. Then you are ready to start capturing data through your phone.
Choose the option you need from the menu
Which method would you like it delivered by?
Features
Ability to scan documents, whiteboards and business cards
Business cards automatically converted to Outlook contacts
Flexible delivery to email or fax as well as to the web site
You can also feed the data from business card into some popular CRM applications
Publisher's site
https://www.scanr.com/
Pros
The application is very well integrated with the camera
The email delivery mechanism makes it simple to send the material you have captured to colleagues
There are tips if you are having problems getting clear images from your camera
You can send in photos and have them converted into funky black and white images
Cons
Palm OS and Windows Mobile phones can only do whiteboards (Java and Symbian phones will do whiteboards, document and business cards)
Only does a good job with clear high resolution photographs
Need bright lights and steady hands to get clear images
Some cameraphones don't offer the combination of resolution and optics (particularly close-up or 'macro' mode) needed to get good results
Verdict
This is a really useful application but you will need a good quality camera to get the most out of it. While the site claims that you can get results from one megapixel cameras, I suggest that you need as good a camera as you can get. This might be the application you need to convince the office to get you a better phone.