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Ion Book Saver hands-on
Treading on the brink of being another CES crapgadget, here's Ion Audio's venture into the book-digitizing business. The Book Saver promises one-second color scans of both pages of a book and comes with OCR software and the ability to export to PDF or JPEG formats. Plans aren't quite finalized and the unit before us wasn't functional, but a 2GB SD card is expected to be included while there's also a USB connection to hook up straight to your PC or Mac. The big problem here is that there's no automation for page turning, and worse yet, you'll need to lift the entire, somewhat fragile, scanner in order to flip to the next page. That's done using that fetching Wiimote KIRF up at the front of the device and there are a pair of cameras embedded in the bottom of the overarching plastic casing. MSRP is set at $149 and availability is coming in June at places like Barnes & Noble, Staples, and Office Depot ... you know, in case you actually want one. %Gallery-113453%
Atiz rolls out "first consumer book ripper," the BookSnap
We've certainly seen plenty of book scanners before, but upstart Atiz has now rolled out what it claims to be the very first "consumer book ripper," although with a price of $1,595, that title is certainly ripe for a challenge. Still, it looks like the system should get the paper-to-PDF conversion job done quite nicely, with a promised scanning rate of 500 pages per hour (although that partly depends on how fast you can flip the pages -- no robot arm here, unfortunately). The "ripping" itself is done by a pair of digital cameras (not included), and it seems that only a select number of Canon cameras are compatible with the device (at least officially). Atiz also apparently offers a DIY model, but those looking for a more polished solution can order the ready-made BookSnap directly from the company right now.
