Commercial Kodak scanner digitizes, tags old photos

In much the same way that Coinstar machines have revolutionized the way we deal with accumulated change, Kodak has unveiled a new commercial scanner that promises to batch-digitize stacks of old photos and assign them rudimentary chronological metadata. Introduced on the occasion of the EasyShare line's fifth birthday, the so-called "Scan the World" technology will be incorporated into modified check-scanning machines for initial deployment as stand-alone kiosks or behind the counter at drug stores, which can currently turn your bits into atoms, but not vice versa. According to Kodak, the scanners use software which is able to identify different photographic paper for estimating the decade in which the picture was shot, and can even group pictures featuring like individuals through facial recognition. Future versions of the application will also incorporate OCR capabilities for reading watermarks or handwritten notes on the back of photos, further improving the accuracy of the tagging engine.

[Colin @ Apr 26th 2006 1:27PM]

Wow...why not just carbon date the things!

Are there THAT many people out there that need this?

[yuppicide @ Apr 26th 2006 1:33PM]

Can this be used for porn?! I have some pictures of models I don't know who they are and I'm missing some from the set. I'd like others to share their pictures and then I can scan for like features and finish my sets.









(I'm kidding by the way)

[Aaron @ Apr 26th 2006 2:09PM]

#1 - Most people are not 30yrs old or younger Many people do have stacks of photos in shoe boxes. Plus what if you inherited some photos from grandma and wanted to do something with them. Just because you don't see a use for yourself, it doesn't mean there isn't a use for the rest of us. I could see myself taking all of my parents photos and scanning them in to share with my siblings. Yes I could do it at home with my own scanner, but this might automate it and make it a lot easier and less time consuming.

[reckless @ Apr 26th 2006 2:12PM]

how in the hell has coinstar revolutionized the way we deal with change? you people don't have banks where you live?

[Lizzy @ Apr 26th 2006 2:52PM]

Wow. This is awesome. I collect old photographs, some of them quite old. And I have loads of them of which I have no digital records. Though you can usually sort by date according to clothing or technology in the photo, this would still be awesome. Yeah, I'd be one of those to use this. And I'm under thirty.

[rod @ Apr 26th 2006 3:00PM]

not only grandma photos.

ancestry work. making your family tree and tagging the correct photos to each family member would make life so easy.

[John @ Apr 26th 2006 3:28PM]

@#4 Most banks don't take loads of loose change around here. They will take it if you bother to count it up and put it into the coin papers but that's what most people are trying to avoid.

[Colin @ Apr 26th 2006 3:52PM]

@#3

I am questioning the mass appeal of a tech that dates the paper of a photo...at best its going to estimate the decade of a photo...does that add value to a large group of people? I doubt it. Unless you are archiving pictures of complete strangers I think most people would be able to narrow down the date of a photo of a family member to the nearest decade with out this tech.

As an aside I'm over 40 not under 30...

[John Stracke @ Apr 26th 2006 4:28PM]

"I think most people would be able to narrow down the date of a photo of a family member to the nearest decade with out this tech."

Yeah, but the idea here is that you give the kiosk a hundred pictures and it scans and organizes them for you. Dating them is just part of that; the face recognition is another (and a much more impressive one, if they can get it to work).

[Jonathan Rath @ Apr 26th 2006 4:53PM]

Too bad it doen't deal with slides. I'd like to cheaply scan about 2000 slides may dad took (and no, I don't want to buy a slide scanner, use it once, then try to sell it on ebay :)

[Andrew @ Apr 26th 2006 8:12PM]

#9, you could just buy a slide scanner, use it once, then sell it on ebay...haha sorry kidding, but some camera places have them and you can rent them or have them scan them for you. (we have a little mom & pop camera/photo center downtown where I live). I also know my HP scanner from years ago had a "Scan Slide" feature. I dont know how well it worked because I never used it, but it was there, and it wasnt a specialized scanner at all.

[Aaron @ Apr 27th 2006 8:28AM]

That's great; a picture of Ulysses S. Grant. I was just doing work in history and couldn't help but notice the resemblance.

[Lou @ Apr 27th 2006 1:36PM]

Awesome. This is exactly what I need. My mom has gotten into to digital pictures heavy. But before that she's been taking traditional pictures for like 37 years. She has probabily 25,000 pictures in boxes and albums. This is the kicker. My sweet mom has asked me if I would help her start scanning all her pictures this summer. Basically I don't want to do it. A machine like this would be amazing.

[Betty s @ Jul 16th 2006 7:26PM]

I have several old photo books with family members that I don't recognize. There is no one else around to help ID them. Where do I find a place that will scan them.

[evbart @ Sep 3rd 2006 11:00AM]

Does anyone have a good way to do this? I'm looking for a way to batch scan a couple hundred photos, and dont want to do it on a flatbed scanner by hand.

Is there a consumer version out that works?

[sam patel @ Aug 8th 2007 2:10AM]

Hello,

You could send the photos to Photoscanclub.com and they will scan all your photos. $99 for 300 photos and that includes shipping.