And the Gutenberg project rejoices

We've all seen hand scanners before, but none this thin and unobtrusive, and none that you swipe down a page like a photocopier.  The DocuPen scans at either 100 or 200 dpi, and can store up to 100 pages internally, which is very decent.  Of course, for $199 US this is really going to sell with the ever-dwindling type who actually tries obtaining information without Google—the philosophy major—but somehow we think it will be a success otherwise, too.

[Via NY Times]

[quanta @ Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

Kinda neat, if you've ever seen the second (short-lived) Mission:Impossible series that went on sometime in the late 1980s, the agents used a portable "light bar" photocopier just like this. I can't believe it took this long for such a thing to become reality.

[tom @ Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

this idea isn't new, just hopefully improved. I remember way back in the early 90's seeing swipe scan (drag scan, really) things like this in much slower, crappier, b&w implementations that only did small portions at a time. good for copying text but not much else. Like so: http://www.surpluselectron.com/mustek.htm