NEAT
Latest
NASA unveils a new testbed for electric aircraft
In order to hit its ambitious goal of transitioning aircraft to electric propulsion in the next ten years, NASA has announced a new research wing at the NASA Glenn Research Center's Plum Brook Station in Ohio. Meet NASA's Electric Aircraft Testbed -- or "NEAT" for short -- a new space for NASA Glenn engineers to design, develop and test electric aircraft like the like the GL–10 Greased Lightning VTOL and the LEAPTech wing.
Gibson takes a whimsical approach to the podcast microphone
When it comes to USB microphones, you're pretty much limited to a collection of black, silver and gold devices. There really isn't a ton or personality in the color schemes or look of those accessories, save for a few exceptions. Gibson's Neat Microphones line is a welcome exception, though, and its latest delivers a combination of whimsical hues and futuristic aesthetics George Jetson would fancy. The trio pictured above are Widgets, and more specifically go by A, B, and C. All three pack custom capsules, built-in pop filters, shock mounts and adjustable stands. Like a lot of USB mics, the Widgets are very much a plug-and-play add-on, as they won't require you to install drivers or software to get started. When you're ready to record, the company says you can use the gear for anything from podcasting to Skype calls and tracking instruments and vocals in 96kHz/24 bit audio. At $99, the Widgets are pricier than the popular Blue Microphones Snowball and cost the same as its newer Nessie USB mic. If the looks are too much for you to pass up with Gibson's latest, you'll be able to nab them starting November 15th.
Artificial intelligence learns Mario level in just 34 attempts
Perhaps it's that all the levels have simple, left-to-right objectives, or maybe it's just that they're so iconic, but for some reason older Mario games have long been a target for those interested in AI and machine learning. The latest effort is called MarI/O (get it?), and it learned an entire level of Super Mario World in 34 tries.
HP and Neat partner for home and small office organization
HP has been manufacturing all-in-one printers with scanners for years, and Neat has made a name for itself with smart scanners and organization software. Today, the two companies have announced a partnership of sorts, with the new HP OfficeJet 8040 with Neat e-All-in-One printer (US$399). The new product combines the features of HP's e-All-in-One printers with Neat software, making it simple to digitize documents, then organize, store and access those files from just about anywhere -- including on most mobile devices. This is also the first HP printer that has a built-in 1 TB hard disk drive for safeguarding files and documents that are scanned and organized. Neat's software is quite impressive, allowing scanning of receipts, business cards and other documents while making the data on those documents keyword searchable and exportable to other applications. Printing from iOS devices to the HP OfficeJet 8040 is a piece of cake with the HP All-in-One Printer Remote app, which works with iPhone 4 or later, iPad 4 or iPad Air, and iPad mini. HP also announced that the HP OfficeJet 8040 features the HP Instant Ink function, which orders new ink cartridges automatically for home or office delivery when it detects that a cartridge is getting low on ink.
NeatConnect Cloud Scanner: Computerless scanning and digital filing
You've probably seen Neat's TV ads touting their new NeatConnect Cloud Scanner (US$499.95). They show someone with a desk somewhat neater than mine quickly scanning in receipts, bills, and business cards with nary a desktop computer in sight. The company sent one to TUAW for a review, so read how this latest scanner from Neat might just change your thinking about scanning ... and keeping a desktop computer around. I have a love/hate relationship with scanners and the entire "paperless office" concept. While I'd love to get rid of every piece of paper that comes into my home and office by scanning everything and storing it in the cloud, every solution I've tried so far has at least one failing. Take, for example, my great idea of using my Epson WF-3540 all-in-one printer/scanner (it has a sheet feeder!) to grab handfuls of bills, receipts, and other paper detritus and bump them up to either Dropbox or Evernote ... or both. That sheet feeder works a lot better in theory than in practice -- it often jams if I scan documents that were folded into envelopes or if I try scanning sheets of different sizes. The software included with the Epson scanner wasn't that great, so I tried PDFScanner for Mac ($14.99). The app helped a lot in terms of turning the scans into PDFs that I could send to Dropbox and Evernote, but lacks a way to automate a lot of the process. The NeatConnect Cloud Scanner is designed to remove the personal computer from the loop, allowing direct wireless scanning to a number of cloud services. It does this by putting a small color touchscreen onto the front of the scanner not only for entering commands, but for cropping scans if needed. Neat's business plan appears to be oriented towards selling the Neat services rather than the scanners, but if you're averse to spending anywhere from $60 to $240 a year for their cloud storage, you can still use Dropbox, Evernote, Box.com, Google Drive or even Microsoft SkyDrive. The scanner features 802.11b/g/n compatibility, and also has a USB port if -- for some reason -- you want to scan to your Mac. An SD card slot makes scanning directly to removable storage a possibility, perfect for situations where you may want to do scanning off-network. The scanner can do single- or double-sided scanning with a maximum resolution of 600 dpi, while scans of up to 8.5" x 30" can be done at the lower resolution of 300 dpi. The sheet feeder on the device can take up to 15 business cards, 15 receipts, and 15 letter-size documents at one time. Take out the paper tray, and you can slam in up to 50 letter-size docs. Dimensions-wise, the scanner fills a volume of 11" width x 8.7" depth x 7.5" height, and it weighs in a 5.3 pounds. Test Drive For me, the proof of how good (or bad) a scanner is lies in how it works in real life, so I unboxed the review device and set it up. My first complaint? The way that the prongs are set up on the power brick insures that unless you plug it in on the end of a power strip, it will cover up three other outlets... That aside, setup is dead simple -- plug it in, turn it on, and follow a tutorial that appears on the screen. That color touchscreen, which measures about 2" wide by 3" tall, takes you through accepting the terms and conditions of use connecting to your Wi-Fi network, connecting to NeatCloud (a subscription is included), and then using the device. Entering the password for the network is made easy through the use of a tiny on-screen keyboard, which is smaller than what you may be used to on an iPhone. Next, the device lets new users of NeatCloud sign up for the service or existing users sign in. A few more steps, and the scanner lets you do a sample scan. Pages and/or cards are put into the three slots on the Cloud Scanner, you are prompted for whether you'd prefer a grayscale or color scan, if the pages are single or double sided, and if you'd like scans combined into one document, and then you press a large orange button on the display. I was quite surprised at how fast the scanner whipped through a few double-sided pages, as I'm used to watching my existing scanner try to (and usually failing) pull the paper back through. Not so with the Cloud Scanner, which did both sides of the pages at once. The scanner is even smart enough to realize if you've accidentally turned on double-sided scanning for single-sided documents, and eliminates the blank pages. That's quite impressive. So what happens once your scans are done? They're stored on the device in an "outbox" and you just tap a "Send" button on the touchscreen to send them to the cloud. Once the documents are happily spending their time in the cloud, you can choose to do any number of things with them from either the website, the Neat desktop software, or a free iOS app. I consider business card scanning to be the litmus test of scanners, as they usually jam or the text isn't recognized properly. I took nine different cards -- some "traditional" and some that were just plain odd -- and plopped them into the card slot. Scanning took just 12 seconds for all of those cards, with the cards being properly oriented on the touchscreen once they had been scanned. Within seconds and without any prompting on my part, those cards started appearing in the NeatCloud inbox -- not only the image, but where possible, with the data extracted into the proper fields of a contact page. How accurate was the recognition? As you'd expect, business cards that had a traditional portrait or landscape layout worked quite well, especially those with dark type on a white background. One card (from Apple co-founder Ron Wayne!) had a photograph in the background, but still picked up important information like street address and name. Three of the cards could not be processed -- a look at them showed that they either had very odd layouts or typefaces. Receipts scanned amazingly well and moved data into the proper fields of an expense form. The only receipt I had an issue with was one from a thermal printer that was from February -- it was faded quite a bit, but the recognition still picked up the card type, the charge date, and the type of charge (it was for a restaurant). Next, I connected to two other cloud services: Dropbox and Evernote. Once the Dropbox connection was made, I was informed that scans would appear in the root folder... not exactly where I would have put them. I have a folder specifically for scans, and it would be nice if it was possible to direct the Cloud Scanner to drop my scans in that place. It was the same for Evernote -- scans go straight into the top level of that service. To select between NeatCloud, Dropbox, and Evernote, you simply swipe across the touchscreen until you see the destination you desire. It's fast and easy to change destinations between scans. As you'd expect, the documents appeared in their proper cloud within seconds. Did I ever have issues with sheet feeding? Yes -- one set of documents had been folded, and I found that I had to "counter-fold" the pages to get them to feed properly. But considering how fast the NeatConnect Cloud Scanner is, it wasn't a hassle to tweak the pages to try again -- successfully. Seriously, six pages of double-sided documents from scan to Dropbox in less than 30 seconds? Nice. If my testing of the NeatConnect Cloud Scanner has done anything, it's made me regret buying an all-in-one device. For the type of scanning I need to do -- in other words, getting from under the avalanche of paperwork that shows up on a regular basis -- this device rocks. Side note: As I tested the scanner, I ended up clearing up a lot of paperwork that I was dreading sending through the scanner on my Epson all-in-one. Large businesses and even small businesses with a lot of paperwork would probably be best served with a document management system that can handle a large amount of incoming paper, but for those who are self-employed or small businesses with a couple of employees, this is an almost perfect solution. Conclusion For small businesses or individuals and families that want to digitize their lives by turning bills, receipts, and business cards into their electronic equivalents, I can't think of a better solution than the NeatConnect Cloud Scanner. It's fast, amazingly easy to set up and use, and works seamlessly with the major cloud services. If you require the ability to have business cards and receipts entered automatically into a contact list or expense report, then the ability of the Neat services to extract that information will be well worth the cost. Pros Bright color touchscreen makes setup of network and cloud accounts fast and easy Scans business cards, receipts, and documents (single- or double-sided) in seconds Doesn't require a Mac or PC Works with all major cloud services plus NeatCloud Small footprint ensures that it won't take up a lot of room in your home or office Generous return policy if you decide it's not for you Cons NeatCloud has issues recognizing some business cards or poorly printed receipt Price puts it out of reach of most consumers; small businesses could expense the hardware Who is it for? Anyone who wants to digitize quantities of printed material quickly for storage in a variety of cloud services
Neat revises mobile scanning app, adds expense reporting
Pushing towards a paperless future, the neat folks at Neat have released version 2.0 of Neat for iOS. The new build of the scanning-on-the-go application features much faster performance, scan annotation, new sharing and collaboration options, plus a new expense-reporting tool. Neat has made its bones as a desktop scanning solution, offering both compact and ADF-enabled scanners that work with the company's Mac and PC applications for document management. The Neat mobile app extends that find-my-files experience for access on the go, with scans and folders synchronizing to the NeatCloud online service. You can quickly share folders or individual scans to collaborate with colleagues, or search the OCR / indexed text of your documents to find what you need quickly. The expense report feature is intriguing; it creates a summary PDF from a collection or folder of receipt scans, totaling up the expenditure and listing categories as it goes. It's not going to supplant dedicated expense-reporting iOS tools like Concur, but for mobile freelancers who want a quick way to send expense overviews while simultaneously filing the receipts for safekeeping, it may get some traction. The NeatCloud platform also includes an optional human-powered verification step called NeatVerify, which will run the automatic OCR results from your receipt or business card scans (no documents) past the eyes of a real, live person for checking. You can get 30 credits for this service for US$4.99 a month, so it's probably best to save it for key items. Speaking of credits, while the Neat application is a free download from the App Store, the required NeatCloud service works on a paid subscription basis. After a 30-day free trial, you will need either the $14.99 or $29.99 monthly NeatCloud plan (discounted if you sign up for a year) to use the app; both plans offer additional features like extra users, cross-service search and more. Compare and contrast the $45 annual cost of an Evernote premium subscription, and you get the sense that Neat is aiming at the more demanding side of the market.
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.
LED cooling fans steal sexy back from liquid-based solutions
Skipping the air cooled approach in favor of some fancy water-cooled rig? Think again, chum. Over at Computex, a smallish company going by the name of Fresh-Tech was on hand to demonstrate the absolutely howling device you see above: a LED-infused PC cooling fan. The fans can be programmed to display nearly anything you wish, and obviously these have the greatest impact on observers when installed in clear or translucent PC enclosures. Ghetto fabulous? Maybe. Nerdalicious? Totally.
Bring 'My Computer' to Mac OS X's desktop
Erica just touched on Mac OS X's ability to selectively hide drives form the desktop via the Finder's preferences, but what if you still want access to those drives? Maybe you're a neat freak when it comes to your desktop, or maybe you're a recent Windows switcher who misses the comforts of My Computer. Either way, an app simply called My Computer might very well do the trick for you, as it really lives up to its name. Included with the app are some brief instructions that basically parallel Erica's post, teaching you how to use the Finder's preferences to remove your drives from the desktop. After that you can simply move My Computer.app into place (which really doesn't do much more than using cmd-shift-c to get to the same display of drives) and enjoy your home away from home, or simply what some might consider a cleaner desktop. While the choice for the app icon is a bit outdated, that can be rectified with a simple Get Info command (cmd-i) on the icon and choosing something new, perhaps from the endless archives at The Iconfactory.
Today's retro-iest game video: iPod with NES controller
We've seen people turn the NES controller into a remote control, turn the NES console into an alarm clock, and even shove a Mac mini inside. Now folks are even cramming things into the NES controller itself. When will the madness end? Nintendo probably had no idea that this thing would be so versatile when they invented it. If someone ever makes one that can heat up pop-tarts, we're sold.Check out the wackiness after the jump, and start figuring how else you can hack this sucker.
Today's most unhinged game video: Xenon 360 - hinged joint
It's short, simple, to the point, and quite frankly one of the sexiest videos we've seen in a long time. A see-through case for the Xbox 360 (how racy!) and bingo, a hinge get right inside and have at the goods. It seems that everyone wants to turn the 360 into a high school cheerleader, and be able to just ogle it whenever they want to. Where is your sense of decency?Well, have at it you sick fiends. Check out the video after the jump, then be sure to visit the confessional both later in the week.
