Gizmodo: scanning

Frustrated Google Seeing Infrared During Quest to Scan Every Book Ever Written

Jack Loftus — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 11:00:00 EDT

My headline won't put the Updike's of the world out of business, but maybe Google's new technique for scanning books into its ever-growing digital library will help me read more and become a better blogger.

Probably not, you're right.

Anyway, the program, as you may know, is called Google Book Search, and it's pretty simple: Google is right now busily scanning as many books as it can get its hands on and adding the images to a search database. It's just another way the company is slowly taking over the world, but who cares—you can click links in the books when they mention locations and Google Maps will take you there!

But on their way to putting public libraries out of business, Google ran into a decidedly low-tech problem when scanning the physical books for uploading into their new digital medium. Basically, the character recognition software requires a relatively flat 2D image of the text to work 100% properly. The books' bindings aren't cooperating, however, as they cause the pages to arch upward on either side. This has made the process take far longer than our future overlords would have liked.

Luckily, Google knows a thing or two about frickin' laser beams (but thankfully not how to attach them to the heads of sharks—yet). By casting an infrared beam over each book, the Google team can use infrared cameras to map the 3D shape and filter out the distortion with some nifty error correction software. And now the books are just flying off the shelves and into the digital ether. [New Scientist]

American Airlines Brings Cellphone Boarding Passes to O'Hare

Sean Fallon — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:30:00 EST

Chicago's O'Hare airport, the second busiest in the world, is set to join several other airports serviced by Delta and Continental in offering passengers the option to use their cellphones as boarding passes. The service will be available to passengers departing from Los Angeles International and John Wayne Orange County airports starting on Nov. 17. [Chicago Tribune]

British Vauxhall Cars Have New Camera That Scans Signs, Displays Current Speed Limit

Jason Chen — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:30:00 EDT

Although various GPS units already have the ability to display the current speed limit (they're pre-programmed in) of the road you're on, this Vauxhall Motors invention seems even better. There's a camera on-board that takes 30 snaps per second, then recognizing speed limit signs and translating that to a number to display on your dash.

This way you can know exactly what the speed limit is at all times, even when you've just transitioned from a high speed area to a low speed one that cops like to ticket in. In fact, if this system is good enough, it could be a decent excuse to tell the popos that their speed limit signs were too obscured that even a 30FPS camera couldn't make it out. [Kicking Tires via Oh Gizmo]

Big Head Hello Kitty Fan

blongo3 — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:22:51 EDT

Don't let her cute, innocent demeanor fool you, Hello Kitty fan is one tough cookie. Constantly scanning back and forth with her giant black eyes. One false move and she'll gnaw your digits off with her variable speed swirling vortex of doom, that or keep your room 5-10 adorable degrees cooler. [TokyoTimes]

Kodak Digs Through Your Old Photos, Finds One of You In Your Diapers

Travis Hudson — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 11:09:12 EDT

Kodak, fast fading in the hardware space, has decided to innovate on the software side. Their software, temporarily called "Scan the World," can scan old photos and organize them based on paper gauge, handwritten and printed annotations, and "scene" and facial recognition.

The scanning will probably take place at Kodak kiosks using repurposed check-scanning machines which can test paper types and various other factors as they suck in your old pictures.

In addition, they also plan to add GPS functionality to their EasyShare V610 with Bluetooth.

Kodak Focuses on Sifting Pix
[Wired.com]