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Office Lens for Android and iOS turns your phone into a scanner
You no longer have to carry a Windows Phone if you want to quickly copy receipts and meeting agendas for the sake of your notes. Microsoft has just released Office Lens in both finished form for iOS and a preview for Android, letting you use your device of choice to turn photos into usable documents. The experience is familiar if you've tried the app before -- all you have to do is get a good snapshot, and the app will convert the output into OneNote-friendly text and image formats. Both Office Lens releases are free, so don't hesitate to give them a spin if you'd rather take pictures than jot down memos.
Justice Department is reportedly spying on millions of US cars
While law enforcement has been using license plate readers to track vehicles for a while, they never formed into a unified network. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security posited a 29-page document about a vehicle-tracking network, but the idea didn't go any further. Until now, that is. The Justice Department has apparently crafted a nationwide database to track vehicle movement across states. While the main aim of license plate tracking is to assist the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in seizing cars and other assets while tackling drug trafficking, according to a government document seen by the WSJ, this will expand to encompass the search for vehicles that have been associated with other crimes, including killings and rape cases.
Doxie Go Wi-Fi: Computer-free scanning goes wireless
TUAW has been following the story of Doxie, the mobile scanner, since day one. This year's iteration of the little scanner is the US$229 Doxie Go Wi-Fi, bringing more built-in storage, an iOS app, and Wi-Fi to a popular accessory. Check out the review, then enter to win a Doxie Go Wi-Fi courtesy of Apparent Corporation and TUAW. Specifications Dimensions: 10.5 x 1.7 x 2.2 inches (26.7 x 4.35 x 5.6 cm) Weight: 15.3 ounces (433 grams) Wi-Fi: 802.11n Pages scanned per charge: 300 @ 300 dpi Design The first Doxie scanner was kind of an oddball, seemingly designed as a scanner for 10-year-old girls as it had pink hearts all over it. That design was replaced with a much more businesslike plain white and black plastic design later, and the company has stuck with it. There's one button on the device to turn the power on and off, a tiny Wi-Fi pairing button on the back of the Doxie, and an SD card slot on the back as well. On one end you'll find a port to plug an AC adapter cable (included). There's also a mini-USB port for syncing - I thought this was a bizarre design choice, since most of the rest of the industry has already moved to micro-USB. About the power button: I found it way too easy to accidentally turn the Doxie Go Wi-Fi on when picking up the device by one end. A recessed button might make this less likely to happen. Passing through the center of the scanner is a paper slot. You'll be able to scan photos or documents (the primary use case for Doxie) with this slot, one page and one side at a time. Functionality I like Apparent's way of packaging the device. You open the box, and greeting you is a reference card covered with instructions. In the same plastic bag as the Doxie Go Wi-Fi is a calibration card that you need to pass through the device to complete the setup. First-time charging takes a while; I plugged in the Doxie Go Wi-Fi while working and after four hours it was still charging... Once the device is charged, you go through the calibration process. That takes about 15 seconds to accomplish, after which you can go crazy and start scanning everything in sight. Scans can go right into the device's onboard memory, onto an SD card, or imported and saved onto your iOS device, Mac or PC. Doxie can join your home or office Wi-Fi network, although the company says that that functionality is "in beta." When you're away from that network, Doxie creates its own network that you can connect to from your compatible device. In reality, I found the ability to connect Doxie to my office network to be fast and simple. To scan, you put the page face up and to the left side of the scanner. There's a small movable plastic "margin" on the right side that you can use to make sure that the paper is inserted straight. I found that I had some issues with plain copy-type paper being pulled into the scanner slot; thicker paper worked fine every time. Once the scans have been made, it's time to connect to the scanner from the Mac or PC Doxie app and import them. You can do this either by pulling out the SD card (if you've stored scans on one) and placing it into your Mac's reader, connecting to the Doxie via Wi-Fi, or connecting it with a USB - miniUSB cable. The scans were usually pretty good, but if the page is pulled in at even a slight angle, there's usually a black "wedge" at the top of the scan. Of course, that can be cleaned up in the app. The app also allows rotation and cropping of images, as well as colors adjustment and "stapling" files together. There's also a stitch function for "gluing" numerous scans together to form a larger image. This is also the first time that Doxie has had an iOS app. It's a universal app - about my only issue with it is that it works only in portrait mode. The app is free, checks the network for the scanner, and then allows importation of the scanned images. From the app, it's possible to save scans to your photo library or share them with others. For photo scanning, there's a plastic sleeve with a bar code at the top of it. Pop your photo under the sleeve, and it is immediately scanned. Images with a black border or a lot of dark shadows are sometimes scanned incorrectly, but for the most part the sleeve does a really good job of holding the photographs in alignment. In fact, I'd suggest using the sleeve for scanning things like receipts and business cards. Photo scans came out looking pretty good with decent color matching. I did notice that the black sleeve does pick up dust very quickly, so you may find dust spots showing up on your scans if you don't occasionally wipe the sleeve. Conclusion On the positive side, I have to give the Doxie Go Wi-Fi kudos for the iOS app (finally!), the ability to connect to your Mac, PC or iOS device wirelessly though 802.11n Wi-Fi, the small size, and the speed of scanning. One negative is that there are some issues with starting page feeds into the scanner with very thin paper. Probably the biggest issue I have is that the price tag for the Doxie Go Wi-Fi is a bit on the high side. Considering that there are a number of apps such as Scanbot (free with in-app purchases, read TUAW review) and Evernote's new Scannable (free, read TUAW review) that make scanning from a much more portable iPhone or iPad stupidly easy, is there really a need for an actual mobile scanner in this day and age? I'll answer my own question - no, if you're just scanning bills, receipts, and other such documents. Frankly, I've found the apps described in the previous paragraph to work remarkably well. If you have a lot of small photos to scan, the Doxie Flip ($149) is probably a much better choice, and if you have any larger documents to scan - or a large number of them - you'll probably want to get a dedicated scanner or all-in-one with a sheet feeder. Rating: 3 stars out of 4 stars possible Giveaway It's time to go paperless! 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 January 18, 2015 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time. You may enter only once. One winner will be selected in a random drawing and will receive a Doxie Go Wi-Fi scanner valued at $229. Click Here for complete Official Rules. Loading...
You can make a 143-megapixel camera using a scanner
Scanners are really extra-large image sensors at heart, so it stands to reason that you could make a decent camera out of one. Right? Well, Dario Morelli just proved it... and then some. His homebrew medium format camera uses parts from an Epson V30-series scanner to take enormous 143-megapixel photos whose resolution puts even the better professional cameras to shame. Morelli went so far as to repackage everything in a custom enclosure, so the device is relatively portable and will sit on a tripod.
Make a mess of your contacts with Business Card Reader Free
OCR - Optical Character Recognition is a very difficult thing to do right. Scanning pages of text can now be done fairly successfully, but business cards have always been a mess. Some are loaded with design elements, weird fonts, and non-standard placement of information. Business Card Reader Free is another attempt to do what might seem to be simple: use your iPhone's camera to easily import business card information into your contacts. The app requires iOS 7.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. I tested it on iPhone 6 running iOS 8.02. The application is free, but limited and includes displays adds (and they're rather intrusive). I have a love/hate relationship with business cards. On one hand they can be beautiful and in the past, back when they were expensive to produce, they were a sign of credibility. Now anyone can print off a few hundred cards they designed for a few bucks. On the other hand business cards are annoying little slips of paper that seem to breed and multiply. I use to have binders full of cards, physical Rolodexs, and other file systems. I bought one of the first Palm devices (still called the "Palm Pilot" at that time), to try and organize my growing stack of business cards. Later I worked for a calendar and contact management software company and looked at a lot of scanning solutions. Very few proved to be any improvement or provide any time savings over simply keying them in yourself. Think about it. It might seem like scanning should save you time, but in fact there is really very little information on a business card. It doesn't take that long to just key one in. It's when you have a stack it seems intimidating. I tested out Business Card Reader Free on a variety of cards. I was unsurprised to find that it had difficulty with even the most basic of cards. When I scanned in a clean, simply designed card it still required that I edit the scanned text, an act that takes longer than simply typing it in. On the more exotic cards (and far too many people have ugly, over designed business cards) it couldn't make much sense out of the card at all. The app does have links to the built in Maps app, can send the imported data to Contacts, and can look to Facebook and Twitter for additional information. That's all nice, but if you can't manage the initial scanning, there's no point in the other features. Beyond that, the free version is severely crippled. You can purchase an "unlimited" one month trial for $2.99 per month or $19.99 per year. The paid premium account gives you unlimited scanning, gets rid of the adds, allows you to synchronize to card databases, and exports to Salesforce. You can also buy "recognitions" in lots for 50 for $4.99. You can also disable the adds for 99 cents. Don't waste your time with Business Card Reader Free. Just set aside your stack of cards and when you have a few minutes, type a few directly into your selected contact manager. You'll save yourself a lot of frustration and heartache.
The Aquila tablet scans our world in 3D to help build better virtual ones
Your tablet can fire off emails and help you rotate beautiful, Escherian worlds, but can it capture the world around you in glorious 3D? Probably not, but the newly revealed (and Android-powered) Aquila from Mantis Vision and Flextronics can. Most of its spec sheet reads like any other top-flight tablet's would -- it's got a 8-inch screen running at 1900 x 1200 and a punchy Snapdragon 801 chipset ticking away in there -- but the telltale dual image sensors 'round the back make it clear this isn't your average Android slate. By capturing regular color footage and infrared depth data, the Aquila can put together an awfully detailed spatial representation of your surroundings.
Sneaking weapons past body scanners is easier than you think
For a while now, folks have been discussing how Rapiscan backscatter X-ray machines used at various security checks can be easily duped. Since metal shows up as black shapes on the scan, it's quite easy to hide something on one's side, or attached to the inside of clothing, blending in to the captured image's background. A cooperative effort amongst researchers from the University of California at San Diego, University of Michigan and John Hopkins has been looking into possible tricks of their own. The group discovered that teflon tape could be used to conceal a weapon on the spine, malware is capable of faking image captures and wrapping items (like simulated explosives) around the body could make them read as flesh on the scans. A bit of good news is the Rapiscan Secure 1000 model tested by the team was swapped out last year by the TSA in favor of millimeter-wave scanners that provide a less detailed image to security personnel. However, the systems remain in use for government buildings around the US. [Photo credit: Michael Fein/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
This artist waterproofed a scanner to create stunning ocean art
"In my ongoing series of "Compressionism" prints, I strap a desktop scanner, computing device and custom battery pack to my body, and perform images into existence." That's how artist Nathaniel Stern describes his collection of unconventional images captured with a desktop scanner. An extension of this project is "Rippling Images," a new collection which takes the idea underwater. Stern worked with a team to create a "marine rated" scanner rig, which he took with him as he scuba-dived off the coast of Key Largo, florida. The results in the gallery below show the ocean environment as interpreted through Stern's scanner and body movements. That explains the rippling part, at least. [Image: Emyano Mazzola]
Windows Phone's Office Lens app wants to replace your scanner
Need a quick and dirty copy of a receipt, document or restaurant menu? Your smartphone's camera can make a rough facsimile -- but Microsoft thinks that it can do better. According to a Windows Phone Store landing page, Office Lens leverages Microsoft OneNote, optical character recognition and your smartphone's camera to put "a scanner in your pocket." The page seems to only be a placeholder for now, but the idea is pretty straightforward: snapshots are synced to the cloud, saved to your device and automatically adjusted for color and readability. Printed documents can be edited and searched, thanks to the aforementioned OCR technology and the app even has glare and shadow removal features to clean up pictures of your office whiteboard. Unfortunately, the demo page reveals very little about how well the program works, featuring only a single screenshot that reveals... the beta tester's tabletop. There's no word on when this app will be available to the public, but feel free to score a quick tease at the adjacent source link.
EVE Evolved: Rubicon 1.1's new deployables
Of all the major changes to EVE Online in the past few years, it's the introduction of personal deployable structures that has had me most excited. I've always been of the opinion that a true sandbox should let individual players and larger organisations build their own personal empires in empty wilderness. If it were up to me, everything from mining and manufacturing to research in EVE would take place in destructible structures and possibly even player-built deadspace dungeons. The Rubicon expansion took an important first step toward this brand of sandbox-style gameplay with the introduction of several new personal deployable structures, including an item hangar and refitting service that can be deployed anywhere in space. Four more structures were initially planned for the Rubicon 1.1 point release to expand the game's tactical possibilities, and this week two of those structures were confirmed. The Mobile micro Jump Unit is a game-changing strategic device that allows players any nearby players to jump their ships 100km forward, and the highly requested Mobile Scan Inhibitor physically hides nearby ships from probes and the directional scanner. Players on the test server have also discovered overview filter options for Mobile Jump Disruptor and Mobile Decoy Unit deployable structures, but developers were unable to confirm whether these would be part of Rubicon 1.1 or even if they'd definitely make it into the game. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look into the tactical possibilities of the Mobile Micro Jump Unit and Mobile Scan Inhibitor and why some players have reservations about these game-changing strategic structures.
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
BlinkScan is a flexible, fast and high-fidelity scanning solution
Your scanner is stupid. You might not know that, but it is. Thankfully, Expand NY Insert Coin semi-finalist BlinkScan is here to give you what you never knew you needed. It's a device that scans images, documents or even objects like many other scanners out there, but unlike those dumb machines, BlinkScan tailors its output. Instead of producing a single image with everything lumped together, it crops out the individual items scanned (so that the background is completely eliminated), straightens the resulting images and exports them as separate files to your photo editing software of choice -- all in about three seconds. BlinkScan also delivers super-high-quality pictures thanks to its unique image-capture method, which the company calls "perfect color capture." To get such fidelity, the device takes three separate 10-megapixel monochromatic images (red, blue and green) and combines them into a 36-bit, 30-megapixel image.
Doxie Flip is a battery-powered, flatbed-style portable scanner that costs $149
When it comes to portable scanners, Doxie already has a little something for most everyone. But there's nothing wrong with adding yet another one to its lineup, right? Today, the company is announcing the Doxie Flip, a wireless scanning device that bears a flatbed appearance and remains as easily transportable as the other members of the family. Unlike Doxie's Go and One, however, the Flip isn't designed to capture documents -- instead, the idea is to be able to scan artifacts of many different shapes and sizes, such as notebooks, photo albums, coins and other stuff your creative mind might think of. On the software side, Doxie is making folks who are invested in its ecosystem feel right at home, since the newly released Flip relies on the same software as previous models. The Doxie Flip is now available for $149, and you can get a better glimpse of it by checking out the gallery below.
Hiku grocery scanner makes remembering to buy the milk an $80 convenience
Everything you need to do, you can pretty much handle with the smartphone in your pocket -- it's a multi-purpose tool, after all. (Some even call it a Life Companion.) But, if you're just itching to overcomplicate your life with digital convenience and single-purpose gadgets, then direct your dollars to Hiku. The $80 device packs WiFi, a mic and scanner into a round, silicone and aluminum package to let you scan the barcodes of household and food products with a one-button push to build grocery lists. It does this in conjunction with a companion mobile app and as you might expect, it's iOS-only for now (an Android version is coming later). Oh, and it's got a magnetic back and a battery rated for up to two months, so you can keep it stuck to the fridge for quick access. There's not much more to it than all that, but the company does plan to issue frequent updates and eventually expand the functionality to let Hiku users scan and actually buy products. If you ask us though, it just seems like one more unnecessary gadget to lose. And besides, wouldn't you rather have all the info beamed straight to you shopping cart? Yes, there's a country for that.
Insert Coin semifinalist: BlinkScan lets you scan multiple objects in a single go
So maybe its "scanning at the speed of light" claims are a bit overstated, but BlinkScan's capabilities are still pretty impressive. The peripheral scans, crops and straightens images in the speed its name implies, pulling out individual files when you can several images at once. After the break, you'll see a YouTube video wherein the BlinkScan does its thing with 47 coins at the same time, giving each its own individual file without ever having to open photo editing software. You can see all of the Insert Coin semifinalists here.
New Brother portable scanner sends docs directly to Evernote, Facebook and Flickr
Let's be honest -- with certain exceptions, most portable scanners aren't very exciting. Brother's new ImageCenter ADS-1500W promises to liven things up, however. The WiFi-equipped reader lets users send any documents directly to cloud services like Evernote, Facebook and Flickr; if you want to share receipts with social networks, you can. Would-be archivists can transfer files to email and FTP servers, too. The 18 ppm scanner ships this month for $299, and it should be accompanied by a lower-end (though currently specification-free) ADS-1000W model at $249.
Evernote expands with new product line: scanners, Post-Its, wallets and socks
Evernote has already ventured beyond apps with a Smart Notebook made by Moleskine, but the company's now kicked off a new initiative that'll see its logo appear on some decidedly more surprising products. As the company indicated previously, that includes hardware developed by a partner -- an Evernote-branded Fujitsu scanner and a stylus from Adonit, for starters -- but also a number of products that have little direct link to Evernote's core services. Those include a wallet, backpacks, a laptop case and, yes, socks -- all of which can be purchased through the Evernote's online store, which is said to also be coming to its various apps. Another new partnership also announced today will see 3M produce a new line of Post-It notes that are designed to be captured with a smartphone's camera, not unlike the aforementioned Moleskine notebook; in this case, Evernote apps will organize Post-Its based on their color. You can browse all the current offerings available in the Evernote Market at the source link below, and count on seeing plenty more in the future. Speaking at the company's conference in San Francisco today, Evernote CEO Phil Libin spelled it out: "we're a fashion brand now."
Occipital's Structure Sensor clamps onto your iPad for 3D scanning on-the-go
With the explosion of desktop 3D printers, there seems little doubt that the next big land grab is the world of 3D scanning. Microsoft's Kinect has taken us a few steps closer to mainstreaming the technology, and MakerBot's soon-to-launch Digitizer is no doubt likely to capture the imagination of much of that community. Kickstarter, naturally, is also littered with smaller companies looking for a piece of that action. Among them, Occipital's Structure Sensor certainly has potential. The company's looking at a lofty $100,000 goal to bring its mobile scanner to market by year's end. The device clips on to a tablet via a bracket, letting you scan objects, create 3D maps of indoor spaces and the like. All said, it's a pretty nice looking bit of hardware. Of course, we can't really vouch for ease of use or effectiveness. If you're willing to take the risk, however, a $349 pledge entitles you to the hardware, an iPad bracket and a Lightning cable.
EVE Evolved: Colonising deep space
If you were watching the news coming out of this year's EVE Online Fanfest, you no doubt heard Senior Producer Andie Nordgren's incredibly ambitious five year vision. The past few expansions have been mostly filled with bug fixes and improvements to existing gameplay, but the goal is now to begin delivering an epic vision of deep space exploration, colonisation, and PvP raids on enemy infrastructure. The five year roadmap toward this goal includes the addition of player-built stargates and completely uncharted solar systems to locate, explore and build an empire in. If the very idea of that doesn't make shivers go down your spine, something may be wrong with your central nervous system. CCP has opened new space before with the addition of the drone regions in nullsec and some new lowsec systems for faction warfare, but it wasn't until 2009's Apocrypha expansion that we saw a true exploration and long-term colonisation effort get underway. I think the intoxicating draw of wormhole exploration was primarily due to the fact that the new systems were hidden and the information on them wasn't public. Just adding new solar systems to the existing stargate network wouldn't have had the same effect. Nordgren's vision may take up to 10 expansions to fully realise, but what kinds of features will we need in those expansions to recreate true exploration and deep space colonisation? In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at some of the challenges CCP will have to overcome to make deep space colonisation a reality and what small steps could be taken in each expansion to get us there.
EVE Evolved: First impressions of Odyssey
The Odyssey expansion has been live for a couple of days now, but it's already starting to have a massive impact on EVE Online. Traffic through low-security space has increased significantly for the first time in years thanks to explorers hunting data and relic sites, and some players are even hunting asteroid belt NPCs in lowsec for the new security tags. New wars have erupted in nullsec following the redistribution of moon wealth, mining has become a more valuable profession, and the rebalanced battleships feel powerful again. Unfortunately, Odyssey has seen its fair share of problems too. The new jump effect looks spectacular the first few times you see it, but long-term play is reportedly causing motion sickness in some players. Some players have also been objecting to the ice mining changes, and the revamped radial UI menu hasn't done much to fix the game's usability problems. Explorers in low-security space and nullsec are reporting incomes in the billions of ISK per day range thanks to the scan probe changes and new hacking minigame, but not everyone is happy with the new loot-scattering mechanic. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the early impact of Odyssey on the EVE Online universe and discover the secrets behind collecting all the valuable loot when hacking.
