Camera phones will be high-precision scanners

The software, developed by NEC and the Nara Institute of Science and
Technology (NAIST) in Japan, goes further than existing cellphone
camera technology by allowing entire documents to be scanned simply by
sweeping the phone across the page.

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Using the new software with a 1-megapixel camera held at least 20centimetres away, an A4 sized page takes about 3 to 5 seconds to scan. This produces between 21 and 35 images which the software merges together to extract the text and record any images.

“The goal of our research is to enable mobile phones to be used as
portable faxes or scanners that can be used any time,” an NEC spokesman
told New Scientist.

But the concern now is that this technology will catapult the
publishing industry into a copyright furore similar to that which has
gripped the recording industry in recent years.

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“Ну вот и славно, хорошо-о!”.
А я всё жду холодильничек, который бы пиво на свист приносил.