Scanner
Latest
University of Glasgow makes 3D models with single-pixel sensors, skips the cameras (video)
Most approaches to capturing 3D models of real-world objects involve multiple cameras that are rarely cheap, and are sometimes tricky to calibrate. The University of Glasgow has developed a method that ditches those cameras altogether. Its system has four single-pixel sensors stitching together a 3D image based on the reflected intensity of light patterns cast by a projector. Reducing the pixel count lowers the cost per sensor to just a few dollars, and extends the sensitivity as far as terahertz wavelengths. Real-world products are still a long way off, but the university sees its invention as useful for cancer detection and other noble pursuits. Us? We'd probably just waste it on creating uncanny facsimiles of ourselves.
EVE Fanfest 2013 day two: World of Darkness, Odyssey, and EVE Virtual Reality with the Oculus Rift
EVE Online's tenth anniversary Fanfest promised to be its biggest yet, with over 1,400 players packed into Iceland's Harpa convention centre to find out the latest on EVE Online, DUST 514, and World of Darkness. The first day focused mainly on DUST and its link with the EVE universe, but today the focus largely switched back to internet spaceships. There were plenty of roundtable discussions, and the CSM and Alliance panels were as awesome as ever, but it was the EVE Keynote that really blew the crowd away. The day got off to a good start with the highly anticipated World of Darkness talk. Most fans were probably expecting to see more airy game design ideas and another shiny trailer, but this year CCP just came out and put all its cards on the table. We saw that the game is still firmly in pre-production, with much of the previous work going into developing the engine and cool content creation tools and shaders. While I was initially disappointed at the lack of gameplay progress or shiny cinematics, I found this approach of being open and direct with fans very refreshing. As I told WoD art director Thomas Holt, honest beats shiny every time. Read on for a full run-down of the EVE reveals from the second day of EVE's tenth anniversary Fanfest, including in-depth details of the Odyssey expansion's features.
Piikki is the best receipts scanner I've used
I've become religious about tracking paper receipts over the last year (and can't wait until all receipts are digital). That means I've tried most of the big-name iOS receipt scanner apps. Out of all of them, an app called Piikki (US$2.99, universal) is my favorite. On the surface, Piikki is similar to other receipt scanner apps. It photographs receipts and saves the image to your phone. But the beauty of Piikki is in its tagging and archival power. Every time you photograph a receipt, the date, time and geolocation are saved. Users can then enter a title for each receipt, select a category the receipt falls into, select the appropriate currency and add tags. Piikki can archive receipts in the app itself, or -- best of all -- it offers several export and sync options, including via Evernote, Dropbox and Google Drive. When browsing archived receipts on your iPhone, you can search via tags, names, locations, dates or more. Another great feature is the bar chart that displays receipt totals organized by category (such as "Travel" or "Food"). The app also offers a myriad number of settings, including passcode lock, image formats (JPEG or PDF), image quality, app themes and more. But my favorite part of Piikki is how it adds a small footer to the JPEG or PDF of the receipt. When I open a receipt on my computer (after it's been synced via Dropbox), not only do I see an image of the receipt, but the footer at the bottom shows me its name, location, date and time, category and tags. Piikki is well worth the $2.99 price and I highly recommend it to individuals who like to track their paper receipts and small businesses as well. Best of all it's a universal app, so it works on the iPhone and iPad. %Gallery-185909%
Kodak tentatively sells its scanning business to Brother for $210 million
Kodak as we once knew it has been shedding its identity piece by piece, and today it's selling off key elements of a more familiar cornerstone. The one-time photography legend has made an initial deal to offload assets of its Document Imaging division to Brother for $210 million through a stalking horse bid. If no one else makes a sweeter offer, Brother is likely to take partial control of Kodak's scanning hardware and software in an agreement that's expected to receive bankruptcy court approval by June. It's almost the end of an era for a company that's all too familiar with ending eras -- let's just hope it gets around to starting one of them in the near future.
AOptix Stratus lets iPhone users check ID through eyes, faces, fingers and voices
The many attempts at weaving biometric identification into mobile devices have usually focused on only one aspect at a time, whether it's fingerprints or voices, and often for access to just the device itself. AOptix isn't quite so narrowly focused. Its new Stratus system combines an app with a custom iPhone 4 / 4S case (the Stratus MX) to verify faces, irises, fingerprints and voices for grander purposes, whether it's office workers checking in or entire national ID programs. The bundle should be more portable than most such alternatives, as well as more intuitive through its familiar interface. Odds are that you won't be buying a Stratus kit to scan friends and family at home, though. Apart from the bundle's lack of support for the iPhone 5 or any non-iOS platform, the Stratus software in the App Store isn't an impulse purchase at $199 -- and an emphasis on quotation-based case sales likely means you'll be the scanner's target, not its owner.
Laser scans objects in 3D from half a mile away, scientists just need reason to use it
3D scanning at a range of 0.62 miles? It just became possible, thanks to a laser camera developed by physicists at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, UK. You can pretty much see how it works from the images above -- laser beams are bounced off the target and the duration of their return journey is measured precisely enough to detect millimeter depth changes even at extreme distances. Speaking of which, the researchers believe they could pump the range up to 10 miles with a bit of extra research, and even shrink the blaster down to make it "fully portable" in less than five years. Who knows, someday it might even work around corners. But there's a problem: skin doesn't reflect the beams properly, which means people can't be accurately scanned unless they also happen to be ringwraiths. As a result, the researchers seem slightly at loss as to what to do with the technology, with their best suggestions so far being watching the growth of foliage or tracking the movement of rocks. We'd try to think up some other ideas, were it not for the distracting and utterly irrelevant Nazgul v Wilhelm video embedded after the break.
Fujitsu touch interface detects fingers on real objects, adds digital details to print
Bringing touch interfaces to real-world objects often involves putting hardware either inside the item or in front of it, neither of which is especially natural. Fujitsu has developed a control system that could eliminate those obstructions and bring digital interaction to many surfaces, even to old-fashioned paper. Its multi-camera approach can distinguish between objects on a table and the exact positions of a user's fingers, right down to fingertip outlines; it's accurate enough to scan text from a book as you drag your finger along the page. The system really comes alive, however, when its projector is involved. Besides providing visual feedback, the image overlay allows for both control of purely digital objects and interfaces tailored to real-world items. The company imagines brochures or maps that pop up extra details, among numerous other examples. While we wonder how long the technology will remain useful when there's an ongoing push to go paperless, Fujitsu sees enough practicality that it's anticipating a product in its fiscal 2014. That doesn't leave long until we can get a very literal hands-on.
Contact Snapper is an easy way to turn business cards into contacts
Contact Snapper for iPhone is the most clever app I've seen for the purpose of turning a business card into an editable digital contact. The app, which you can test for free, has several in-app purchase options I'll discuss later in this review. Contact Snapper is simple to use, and that is the most powerful aspect to the app. Hold a business card up to the iPhone camera while the app is running, touch the screen, a picture is snapped and the recognition engine goes to work. If the app is confused about any of the words they appear in red text that you can correct. Then poof -- the card is in your Contacts database. Contact Snapper handles double-sided cards, and depending on the version of the app you purchase, it can grab a photo of the card and add it to to your contacts. The app recognizes the usual contact info, plus websites, email and SMS info. Contact Snapper can even provide geolocation of your contact addresses and also recognizes QR codes. It does not require a data connection, as the text recognition engine is built into the app. I gave Contact Snapper some tough assignments in my testing: vertically oriented cards, a card with a dark green background and orange text and one with a photo. In each case, the recognition was perfect. In one instance, Contact Snapper missed a letter, but it turned out the card wasn't fully centered in the camera view and the letter had been inadvertently cropped. There are other apps that recognize business cards, but I haven't seen one with such a wide feature set, such accurate recognition and such perfect linking of text to the correct contact fields. Contact Snapper also supports LinkedIn integration and works in 200 countries, allowing for differing regional contact formats. %Gallery-184530% The one negative of the app is its confusing pricing structure. You can try Contact Snapper for free and save up to three contacts. After that, you need to spend some money, and I think there are just too many available options. There are six in-app purchase options, including photo and text at US$5.99, picture and text with unlimited country coverage at $7.99, text only for $2.99 and other variations on that theme. This should, in my view, be simplified dramatically. There are also an assortment of upgrades from one level to another for a total of 10 options. Most people will probably choose a price option between $2.99 and $5.99. Contact Snapper is a terrific app. It does what it claims to do quickly and accurately. I'd like to see the in-app purchasing simplified, but don't let that stop you from grabbing this app if you are constantly being handed business cards and are tired of typing them manually into your iPhone. Contact Snapper requires iOS 5 or greater. If you'd like to try something free, check out the ad-supported CamCard. It gets good reviews from users, but has some limitations on the number of cards you can scan. SamCard is also free and gets positive reviews.
EVE Evolved: EVE's Odyssey expansion could be incredible
When EVE Online's upcoming Odyssey expansion was officially announced last week at PAX East, the anticipation from players was almost palpable. Odyssey aims to follow in the footsteps of 2009's blockbuster Apocrypha expansion by revamping the exploration system and filling the void of space with thousands of new hidden treasures. We've been promised new ships, a new scanner mechanic with sleek new UI and additional functionality, and a rebalancing of industrial resources across the game. Though CCP is saving most of the expansion reveals for next month's EVE Fanfest and beyond, we can make some fairly educated guesses on what the expansion will contain from the press release and teaser site. It's pretty much a given that we'll get some kind of new exploration ship, and there's pretty strong evidence that moon minerals will be changing somehow. We're also almost guaranteed to get new faction battlecruisers, and the evidence is mounting that Jove space may finally be about to open for exploration. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the evidence for Jove space finally opening, explain why we desperately need a new scanning system, and make some educated guesses on what else the Odyssey expansion might contain.
Five apps for business card scanning
Persistent critters, those little analog cardboard rectangles. Even with the option to scan QR Codes, email vCards or bump phones to swap contact information, the venerable business card keeps on trucking -- and keeps on making it challenging to leap from analog to digital information. If your career or avocation takes you to meetings, trade shows or conferences, chances are you too have a pile of to-be-dealt-with business cards that could stand a good digital shakedown. Here's our five apps rundown of a few good choices for handling business card scanning on the go. SHAPE's Business Card Reader: Last year, we noted that the US$4.99 Business Card Reader expanded its offerings with an iPad version of the app. BCR delivers capable scanning and OCR (using libraries licensed from high-end scanning developer ABBYY, which has its own app suite as well), with a good verification step to make sure that the recognition is matching the actual card data. BCR can quickly export scanned data to your device address book, match LinkedIn connections, and in the latest version it hooks directly into the CRM tools of Salesforce.com for marketing and sales pros. Evernote Hello: I wasn't all that taken with the first version of Evernote's free meet-and-manage contact app; it was buggy, and it seemed awkward to ask a new acquaintance "Mind if I take your picture so I remember you?" Things have definitely changed for the better with January's version 2 release. In addition to manual entry and Hello-to-Hello audio contact sharing (very cool, I recommend giving it a try), the beautifully designed app now supports business card scanning -- temporarily free for both regular and premium Evernote users, although at some point down the road the regular user scan allowance may be curtailed or changed to IAP. Evernote's expertise with text recognition and knowledge of the iPhone's camera capabilities seems to have paid off, as Hello is now delivering some of the best and quickest scan results I've seen. My favorite feature is the heads-up display that automatically detects the card and gives you instant feedback on getting the best image ("use a shallower angle," "center the card," "hold the phone steady," etc.); as soon as Hello thinks it's got the shot, it captures the scan automatically. If it can't auto-detect, it falls back to manual mode, but most of the time with a light card on a dark background it nails it in one try. Within a few seconds, the data is detected, and if you're signed into LinkedIn via Hello, the card will be matched with that contact immediately. Hello also links a "meeting" note to give context to the encounter, rather than leaving a bare contact without metadata. Some minor quibbles aside (you can't edit the Hello notes in either the desktop or iOS versions of the regular Evernote app, for one), Hello is a winner. Without a firm date or pricing for the end of the free scan trial for non-premium Evernote users, my recommendation is to use it while you can. LinkedIn's CardMunch: With more than 2 million cards processed already, the free scanning app from your friendly neighborhood social network for professional use has simplicity and volume on its side. Assuming you already use LinkedIn's connection ecosystem, CardMunch's scanning speed and off-device processing make it great for dealing with a lot of cards in batch mode, and you can make notes on each scan before it's recognized on the back end. Of course, the trade-off of the cloud processing step is that you can't easily OCR cards on the plane on the way home without forking over for some WiFi. Also, checking for errors is a two-step process since the scan and the data return are a few minutes apart -- but CardMunch tends to make fewer mistakes than other apps, so that's not a big drawback. WorldCard Mobile: When I last checked out the $6.99 WCM app a year ago, it stood up well against competitors like CardMunch and BCR. Since then, the app has added QR Code scanning with support for both vCard and meCard formats, iOS 6 compatibility, support for double-sided cards, batch scanning, duplicate search and direct synchronization with Google contacts. WCM's interface is still in need of some redesign TLC, but for rapid and accurate scanning, it's a good choice. Note that WCM also requires you to tap a small button on the screen to take a card photo, while other apps let you tap the whole screen or auto-detect the card (Evernote Hello). NeatCloud and NeatMobile: If you're in the habit of keeping all your print-to-digital documents in the Neat ecosystem driven by one of the company's desktop scanners, you're already comfortable with the OCR and filing capabilities of the platform. What's new is that Neat is extending your scanned repository into the cloud and onto your iPhone, with the NeatMobile / NeatCloud combination app and service. NeatCloud gives you on-the-road access to your scanned docs, and in turn the NeatMobile app allows you to scan back to that pile of data from wherever you happen to be. This sync isn't a free service, however; monthly plans start at $5.99 for individual users. As such, the mobile app doesn't worry much about handling address book sync or other standalone features; the workflow is that you'll do that processing back on your Mac or PC with the downloaded scans. Neat's app does a solid job of scanning business cards in standalone mode, but for true accuracy with a human touch the optional NeatVerify pass submits your scan for a once-over by a person to make sure everything is in the right place. NeatVerify credits are linked to your NeatCloud account.
Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner goes on sale for $59
Lomography's Smartphone Film Scanner has reached that moment that every crowdfunding project strives for, but often seems elusive: everyday sales. The peripheral is now sitting in stock at an ordinary, post-Kickstarter $59 price. As you'd expect, the functionality remains what we were promised earlier in the year. Slot in an iPhone, or certain Android smartphones, and scanning 35mm film or a slide is just a matter of lining things up and snapping a photo with the phone's camera. Anyone who's sitting on a treasure trove of old photos -- or is just holding on to that film SLR for dear life -- can shop for the scanner at the source link.
Insert Coin: Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner does as its name implies
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. The fine folks over at Lomography are at it again, but this time, they're out for something more than just quirky. In fact, this may be useful for many more people than those obsessed with retrofied / distorted photography. As so many established outfits are doing these days, Lomography has turned to Kickstarter in hopes of funding its latest endeavor. The Smartphone Film Scanner is a (comparatively) portable device that straps onto any iPhone and "most" Android phones. From there, you simply slide any old 35mm film you have laying around into the back, flip on the embedded backlight, and capture a photo of the negative using the included app. Once it's digitized, you can flip it into a positive, stitch together a panorama, or even create a multi-frame animation. Naturally, it can be shared around the globe from there using your social media program of choice. Head on past the break for a few demo vids, and tap the source link to hand over your credit card details -- early birds can snag one for $40 + shipping, while those coming on late will be asked to fork over a bit more.
Fujitsu outs ScanSnap iX500 scanner with iOS and Android apps, improved speeds
Fujitsu's been making scanners for years now, and it's even figured how to bypass the PC altogether so that you can send files straight to an iOS or Android device. The last time it released a phone-friendly scanner, though, it was more of a portable device, one that was only capable of scanning so many pages per minute. Now, the company's coming out with the ScanSnap iX500, a very similar product except for the fact that it's meant to live on your desk, and has enough power to scan documents twice as quickly. Thanks largely to a new feeder system, it can scan up to 25 double-sided pages per minute, compared with 20 ppm on Fujitsu's last desktop model. It also packs a new processor that will help the scanner auto-rotate images and make other corrections more quickly. Additionally, Fujitsu claims this does a faster job at making PDFs searchable, adding all the appropriate metadata your computer would need to find the file. Finally, the main Quick Menu is now customizable so that you can pick and choose which apps receive scanned files. For instance, Photoshop isn't an option by default, but you can make it one through a short setup process. The scanner is available today and priced at $495: expensive, yes, but about what you would've had to pay for the last-gen model too. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
Ion introduces Air Copy: mobile scanner for smartphones, tablets and laptops (update: eyes-on)
Ion's Air Copy has just stepped into the wireless mobile scanner arena, and it brings support for slinging scanned documents and photos as big as size A4 to Android, iOS, Windows 8 and OS X devices via WiFi. Once documents are scanned, they're saved as high-resolution 300 DPI JPEG files to the connected hardware. A free app available for the gadget gives users a real-time preview of what's being scanned. There's no word on pricing or availability as of yet, but you can hit the jump for the press release or take a peek at our hands on shots in the gallery. Update: As it turns out, Air Copy is being readied for an April release and will set customers back $179.99. In person, the hardware itself is easy on the eyes and light enough to comfortably tote around. We didn't get to take it for a spin, but you can check out our eyes-on photos in the bordering gallery. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
Doxie One: Affordable portable scanner for Mac, iPad
We've followed Apparent's Doxie scanners since their infancy, and the company has done a fantastic job of working to bring the reality of the paperless office to millions of Mac owners. The Doxie One ($149) is a portable scanner that works with Macs and iPads, and you'll have a chance to win one with a pack of fun accessories at the end of this review. Design The best thing about the Doxie scanners is their small size. The scanner measures 10.5 inches wide by 1.7 inches high by 2.2 inches deep, and weighs just 13.6 ounces. It's designed to scan anything from business cards up to A4 or US letter sized sheets. There's a special "carrier" sleeve if you have old fragile photos to scan, or you can just slide those color images right into the scanner. The basic Doxie One is made of black and dark gray plastic, but if you're in the mood for color, the company now sells swappable skins in seven Pantone colors ($10). There's also a nice carrying case to protect the scanner if you take it on the road ($29). The device is powered by a generic power brick, but can be outfitted with four rechargeable AA batteries for total portability. %Gallery-173805% Doxie One comes with a USB cable, but that's not really needed as it's designed to be used without a computer. It comes with a 2 GB SD card that is placed into a slot on the back of the device. Scans are saved to the card, which can then be read by the SD card reader in most new Macs or by using the SD card readers for iPad. While you can then just import the images into your favorite Mac or iOS apps, Apparent recommends using their free Doxie app to help organize and save your scans. For Dropbox users, you might just want to use the built-in auto-upload function for images on an SD card to copy your scans to the cloud. The Doxie app does allow you to virtually staple scanned docs together, rename the scans, and do some OCR as well. That OCR capability is used to create searchable PDFs, although you can have the app output a text file. The sharing capabilities of the app provide one-click uploads to Evernote, Dropbox, Google Drive, Flickr, and Basecamp among others. On the Mac, there's integration with iMessage and AirDrop to send PDFs to friends or other Macs on a local network. Scans loaded to the iPad are transferred to the Photo Roll, where they're automatically backed up through iCloud. Functionality I've never been a real fan of sheet-fed scanners, since they always seem to pull in the paper sideways if there's a crease, and that causes the scans to be screwed up. However, the Doxie One does a remarkable job of pulling in whatever you're scanning and keeping it straight. I scanned receipts, folded glossy paper, old photos, invoices, and even an old newspaper (remember those) clipping, and all were pulled through the Doxie One with ease. I'm not sure what Apparent has improved, but it seems like this version of their scanner handles paper better. If you've never used a scanner before, Doxie includes a well-written comic book-like Quick Start Guide to get you going. Seriously, a kid could set up and use this scanner. I do tech writing for a living, and I find the Doxie Quick Start Guides to be the gold standard for clear, understandable instructions. To transfer the scans from the Doxie One to my iMac, I decided to use the built-in SD card reader. That provided a bonus backup for my scans, since I use the Dropbox camera import feature to send photos straight to the cloud. The Doxie Mac app is straightforward and incredibly easy to use. Items that have been scanned and saved are marked with a large white-on-green checkmark, while newly scanned items are designated with a clear thumbnail image. Clicking on any of the scans allows you to save it, send it, or store it on your favorite cloud storage. Command-clicking multiple pages gives you the ability to staple (combine) pages before saving. With the iPad, you're using the built-in Photos app. Using Apple's USB Camera Kit (or the Lightning to SD Card Camera Reader), placing the Doxie's SD card into the reader launches the Photos app and you're given an opportunity to import the images. Of course, there's no way to combine documents; that requires other third-party apps. I'd love to see Apparent come up with an iOS app that would provide the functionality of the Doxie app on Apple's mobile devices. Yes, it's possible to mimic the functionality with a combination of other apps, but having an iOS replica would make it possible for Doxie users to learn one app for both platforms. One final note; Doxie customers get free access to Doxie Cloud, which provides a quick and easy way to share scans. Conclusion Apparent has raised the bar for portable scanners with the Doxie One. It's an excellent piece of hardware supported by an easy-to-use Mac app, and it can be used with an iPad with the help of an SD card reader. With the new year about to arrive, the Doxie One is a great gift for anyone who needs to go paperless and get organized. Pros Inexpensive Compact, lightweight and can be battery powered for complete portability Easy to setup and use thanks to well-written documentation and a simple, straightforward app Can be used without a computer or tablet, storing scans to an included SD card Cons No native iPad app (but does work with built-in Photos app) Who is it for? Anyone who would like a portable scanner to enhance their personal organization Giveaway Tis the season to be giving, so we're giving a TUAW reader a complete pack of Doxie goodies. The winner will get a gift pack complete with a Doxie One valued at $149, an A4 Case valued at $29, both a Lightning to SD Card Reader ($29) and a 30-pin Dock Connector SD Card Reader ($29), and a Doxieball hoop ($3). Here are the rules for the giveaway: Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older. To enter, fill out the form below completely and click or tap the Submit button. The entry must be made before December 23, 2012 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time. You may enter only once. One winner will be selected and will receive a Doxie One scanner gift pack valued at $239 Click Here for complete Official Rules. Loading...
Doxie One scanner begins shipping, brings on-the-go scans for $149
It's been less than a month since Doxie introduced us to its newest portable scanner, the Doxie One, and today the company announced its on-the-go apparatus is ready to hit the masses. Available worldwide as of now, the Doxie One's an easily conveyable add-on that does scans mostly anywhere folks decide to take it, which is made easier by being compatible with both Mac and PCs as well as iPhone, iPad and iPod touch (must be running iOS 6). The Doxie One starts at a not-too-shabby $149, while Doxie also offers a slightly pricier unit in the WiFi-capable Doxie Go for $199. Interested in snagging one for yourself? Then be sure to hit the source link below, where you'll be able to pick from an array of colors and move on with the checkout process.
3D book scanner blows through tomes at 250 pages per minute
Dai Nippon Printing probably isn't a company you're terribly familiar with, but you might feel inclined to keep closer tabs on the Japanese outfit. With help from the University of Tokyo, Dai Nippon has created a book scanner that can plow through texts at up to 250 pages each minute. A mechanism flips through pages at lightning speeds while a pair of cameras overhead snap detailed images of each sheet as it flies by. Special software then flattens out the photos and turns the picture into a machine readable, 400 pixel-per-inch scan that can easily be converted to PDF, EPUB or other format. Unlike many other high-speed scanners, this doesn't require a book be damaged by removing the pages. In fact, it's quite similar to Google's creation that powers Books. Dai Nippon is actually planning to bring this beast to market sometime in 2013, but it has yet to announce a price.
Doxie One portable scanner rolls in for $149, plays well alone and syncs with Mac, PC and iOS
Doxie has added another portable scanner to its heart-logo'd lineup, the Doxie One, which can digitize documents and images to an included SD-card with nary a computer in sight. Doxie says that'll let you travel light with the "paper-towel roll sized" device to scan and automatically generate Abbyy OCR-read PDFs, then sync up later with a Mac, PC, iPhone or iPad. From there, you can use the included app on a Mac or iDevice to transfer the scans to Dropbox, Evernote or iMessage. The device eschews the WiFi option of its recent Doxie Go sibling, but carries a lesser $149 sticker -- check the PR for the full dope.
Hitachi boarding gate can sniff explosives on passes, keep the transport queues flowing (video)
Anyone who's hopped on a flight at a major airport, or even some land-based transit, knows the agonizing wait that certain agencies demand while they scan for explosives and check boarding passes. Hitachi is working with Nippon Signal and the University of Yamanachi to build a new boarding gate that hopefully kills those two security birds with one stone. As you're swiping your boarding pass (or smartphone), the machine also scans it for particle-sized traces of explosive materials and sends the all-clear or no-go in less than two seconds. If all goes well, the system could check up to 1,200 passengers every hour at a single gate -- a rate quick enough to prevent a logjam at even the busiest terminals. Our chief reservations surround its scope. Hitachi has earned enough trust to get trial installations at Narita International Airport and a Tokyo subway station this coming spring, but we have a hunch that some airport officials would demand a more thorough screening, no matter how much it's actually needed.
EVE Evolved: A game of cat and mouse
Outside of the annual Alliance Tournament, it's rare to find a fair fight in EVE Online with both sides being evenly matched in numbers or odds of success. On the actual battlefields of EVE, lone pilots and fleets alike hunt for fights they can win and tend to shy away from fights that aren't stacked in their favour. A bold few will intentionally engage when they're outmatched or outgunned in the hopes of getting a lucky and impressive-looking kill, but most of the time, that kind of fight is the result of a poor judgment call or misreading the situation. Something new EVE players tend to have trouble accepting is that the outcome of a fight is often decided before the guns even start firing. EVE PvP is a massive game of tactics in which the goal is to catch weaker enemies at a disadvantage, so the fight could already be lost the moment you're caught by a superior foe. A lot of PvP is psychological; you trick enemies into thinking they have the upper hand, and you hide your true intentions and abilities until it's too late. Fleets of all sizes roam around EVE appraising the smaller fish while avoiding the sharks, and I wouldn't trade that cat-and-mouse gameplay for any level of pre-arranged fairness. But what motivates people to fight or flee, and how can we win the psychological battle to gain an upper hand? In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at three tricks you can use to catch targets off-guard.
