document
Latest
Google Photos makes it easier to take clear pictures of receipts
Google is making it easier to capture clear photographs of receipts and other documents. Following on from the AI-powered suggested actions feature unveiled out last year, which automatically brightens and rotates images, the company is this week launching a new crop and adjust function for snaps of printed items and text-heavy pages.
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.
Google gently tweaks offline experience for Docs, rolling out to Drive users now
You asked for it (probably), and Google delivered (definitely). Once you've enabled Docs offline within Google Drive -- you have, right? -- you'll be able to both create and edit Google documents and view Google spreadsheets sans a live internet connection. But now, Google's massaging the interface in order to automatically filter only offline docs while you're disconnected. Furthermore, those who'd like to preview which files are available offline while still online, you can tap More -> Offline Docs in the left navigation pane. Google's saying that it'll roll out to "all Drive users over the next few days," so hopefully your data plan will last you till then.
Leaked doc indicates T-Mobile could raise 5GB and 10GB data prices on April 4th
An alleged Magenta-branded memo's managed to find its way out of store lockup and land at the TmoNews offices, revealing some not-so-good news for potential future customers. Per the leaked document, T-Mobile's about to hike the price on its 5GB and 10GB Promotional Bundles data plans, starting as soon as April 4th. The changes would slap an extra $5 monthly fee on each Classic plan, boosting the 5GB to $35 / $40 and the 10GB to $65 / $70, however it'd only apply to customers signing up after the aforementioned April date. Perhaps, it's all part of T-Mo's "restructuring" plan...
Leaked Sprint memo reveals upcoming Direct Connect Now app for Android
It's been nearly a year since The Now Network ditched iDEN and unveiled its CDMA push-to-talk menu, the latter of which could see a major boost in the near future. A recently leaked doc would suggest Sprint's got a Direct Connect Now Android app in the works -- one that wouldn't have you rockin' some ruggedized hardware. The memo also reveals the application is set to "launch in 2012," with the Samsung Transformer Ultra being the first device to carry it. Naturally, the alleged PTT goodies will adjust to touchscreen handsets, bringing new controls alongside group calling and support for both Sprint and Nextel's Direct Connect services. Let's just hope Sprint doesn't bail on this like it did on QChat...
Amazon's Send to Kindle lets you send stuff to your Kindle
Do you like Amazon Kindles? Do you like PCs? Do you like documents? Would you like to send documents from your PC to your Kindle? Fantastic, because that's totally what you can do with Amazon's new Send to Kindle software. You might wanna take this opportunity to grab a notepad, because it's sort of complicated: download the program for free, fire up Windows Explorer, find a document, right-click it, and choose Send to Kindle. You can also save documents to download at a later date and synchronize your bookmarks, notes and highlights across all (non-PDF) documents, which is pretty wild, if you think about it. Windows users can dramatically change their lives at the source link below. Mac users will have to wait a little longer.
WikiLeaks' Spy Files shed light on the corporate side of government surveillance
WikiLeaks' latest batch of documents hit the web this week, providing the world with a scarily thorough breakdown of a thoroughly scary industry -- government surveillance. The organization's trove, known as the Spy Files, includes a total of 287 files on surveillance products from 160 companies, as well as secret brochures and presentations that these firms use to market their technologies to government agencies. As Ars Technica reports, many of these products are designed to get around standard privacy guards installed in consumer devices, while some even act like malware. DigiTask, for example, is a German company that produces and markets software capable of circumventing a device's SSL encryption and transmitting all instant messages, emails and recorded web activity to clients (i.e., law enforcement agencies). This "remote forensic software" also sports keystroke logging capabilities, and can capture screenshots, as well. Included among DigiTask's other products is the WifiCatcher -- a portable device capable of culling data from users linked up to a public WiFi network. US-based SS8, Italy's Hacking Team and France's Vupen produce similar Trojan-like malware capable of documenting a phone or computer's "every use, movement, and even the sights and sounds of the room it is in," according to the publication. Speaking at City University in London yesterday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said his organization decided to unleash the Spy Files as "a mass attack on the mass surveillance industry," adding that the technologies described could easily transform participating governments into a "totalitarian surveillance state." The documents, released on the heels of the Wall Street Journal's corroborative "Surveillance Catalog" report, were published alongside a preface from WikiLeaks, justifying its imperative to excavate such an "unregulated" industry. "Intelligence agencies, military forces, and police authorities are able to silently, and on mass, and [sic] secretly intercept calls and take over computers without the help or knowledge of the telecommunication providers," wrote Wikileaks in its report. "In the last ten years systems for indiscriminate, mass surveillance have become the norm." The organization says this initial document dump is only the first in a larger series of related files, scheduled for future release. You can comb through them for yourself, at the source link below.
Sign legal documents with your finger, your iPad and Softsign
Did you ever think of your finger as a legal signing tool? Softsign for iPad (free for a limited time) offers a PDF annotation tool for iOS that allows you to sign legal documents via a touch screen. Developer Tom Hodgson points out that a variety of laws implemented more than a decade ago made electronic signatures legally valid in the US, the UK, and beyond. The 2000 United States ESIGN act specified that e-signatures could be accepted as equivalent to a written signature for commercial transactions. The EU has the 1999/93/EC Directive on Electronic Signatures, and in the UK there is the Electronic Communications Act 2000. The first time you use the app, you're prompted to enter a master password. This password goes into effect whenever the screen goes idle or you enter or leave the app. It ensures that no one is going to use Softsign accidentally by picking up your iPad. Once you've authenticated, you can review the PDF agreements that have been sent to you and sign them, both by entering typed text elements and by signing items. The signing screen provides an interactive drawing session letting you create as many strokes as needed to build your signature. Handy undo support means stray marks can be removed before adding them to your signature. Softsign has clearly spent a lot of time thinking about the user experience. You can easily drag elements around the screen to move them into place just-so, or to resize or delete them. This is one of the best iPad direct manipulation GUIs I've encountered in that regard. I'm slightly less fond of Softsign's annotation system, but I understand where it comes from. The designers needed to adapt tasks to a touch-only system without having to add complex gestures or overly train their users. They did this by adding a lot of menus. These are quite pretty to look at, and simple to use, but I wish you didn't have to drill up and down quite so much. Softsign allows you to mark up PDFs, not just sign them. When you enter annotation mode, it uses a series of (modal) pull-down menus that allow you to adjust the pen size, to navigate through the document, and to perform basic edits. Once you're done, (tap Done), you save your changes (with optional password protection) to file and enter a screen that allows you to email and print the file. Softsign offers integrated "Open in" features, letting you export your signed documents to AirSharing, Dropbox, or other applications that connect outward to the internet. Adding new documents to Softsign couldn't be easier. Just drop items in through iTunes or email them to yourself and use iOS Mail's "Open in" option to move PDFs over to Softsign. On the whole, Softsign is cleverly built, offers well thought out features, and was straightforward to use. It is being offered for free for a limited time. TUAW suggests you take advantage of this offer while you can. [We covered SignMyPad a while back, a similar app developed by former TUAW contributor Justin Esgar. SignMyPad is now $3.99 for the basic version, and $19.99 for the GPS-enabled Pro version that formerly cost $99. –Ed.]
Video App Demo: PDF Expert
In a world where there are plenty of PDF tools, PDF Expert distinguishes itself with a few key features. I've been a fan of Readdle's past products, and PDF Expert aims to give you a truly universal tool for dealing with PDFs, whether you are a student, educator, lawyer, doctor or anyone dealing with the "paperless office." Dave gave it a look back in March, but some new features have been added. With PDF Expert you're able to sign documents with your finger or stylus, send documents to 9 different services (Readdle has their own) and my favorite: fill out PDF forms. On top of these features you get the usual stable of PDF management tools for sorting and annotating your files. To see a walkthrough of these features, check out the video below. [Video was pointing to the wrong place for a bit there, apologies. -Ed.] if(typeof AOLVP_cfg==='undefined')AOLVP_cfg=[];AOLVP_cfg.push({id:'AOLVP_1042635778001','codever':0.1, 'autoload':false, 'autoplay':false, 'playerid':'61371448001', 'videoid':'1042635778001', 'width':480, 'height':270, 'stillurl':'http://pdl.stream.aol.com/pdlext/aol/brightcove/studionow/p/86678bce70b39/r/44d85555dae5f/al/193862/poster-10.jpg', 'playertype':'inline','videotitle':'TUAW - App Demo - PDF Expert','videolink':'#'});
Wolfram launches open CDF format, adds visual pizzazz to charts and graphs
Amazon's Kindle DX and RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook were supposed to be the business world's answer to an on-the-go office. Turns out, PDFs viewed in e-ink or on a tethered slate don't offer much in the way of interactive app experiences -- they're still just documents, no matter the tablet they're wearing. Well, Wolfram Group's got an open format contender to Adobe's throne and it's hoping you'll adopt it. Introduced today, the Computable Document Format "puts easy-to-author interactivity at its core," breathing animated life into otherwise static infographics. Not a programmer? No need to worry, the company promises the two-way diagrams are "easy enough for teachers, journalists, managers, [and] researchers to... create." We've seen Microsoft's XPS take a similar crack at dethroning the reigning format king, only to find itself in portable document oblivion. We'll just have to wait and see if CDF's a more noble contender. In the meantime, head on over to the source to download the free player and see for yourself the possible future of live textbooks, tables and charts.
Rumour: Leaked document shows CCP's microtransaction plans [UPDATED]
In the wake of controversy surrounding EVE Online's new microtransaction store and its not-so-micro prices, a document has surfaced that has raised more than a few eyebrows in the EVE community. The PDF is reported to be a copy of CCP's internal company newsletter Fearless. Ex-CCP employee and current CSM member Seleene was able to verify that the company does circulate an internal newsletter by that name and that the style is very similar to the leaked document. However, the absolute authenticity of the document can not at this time be proven. The document dates back to May 2011 and discusses how microtransactions will be integrated into EVE Online, DUST 514 and World of Darkness. Most of the document is fairly harmless, but a few parts have stood out to players. According to the document, "Not all virtual purchases [in EVE Online] will focus on customization: some will simply be new items, ammunition, ships, etc. that can be purchased outright." Also mentioned is the possibility of buying faction standings. Both of these would be in complete contrast to earlier promises from CCP not to allow microtransactions that influence gameplay. Authenticity of the document is still in question, but we can reveal that the leaked PDF has had several pages removed before being made public. A link to the full version was later leaked on twitter. Page 2 of the document, which was omitted in the originally leaked file, contains a disclaimer stating that the views presented are personal opinions and not company policies or decisions. This adds further confusion as players attempt to make sense of the file's contents. We reached out to CCP to ask about the document's authenticity and to request clarification on the discussions presented in it. We'll update this post with any response we get. [UPDATE: The document's authenticity has been confirmed by CCP Pann from CCPs PR department. Massively has a hard-hitting interview in the works with CCP Zulu on the issue]
HP TouchPad rumored to lack document editing at launch
The WebOS nuts at PreCentral have received an anonymous tip-off that HP's imminent slate won't be able to edit Office docs out of the box. As much as we'd like to dismiss this as a retaliatory rumor put out by BlackBerry, it emits an unfortunate whiff of truth. While HP has previously made a big deal of the TouchPad's inclusion of the Quickoffice app, it has only said it's "working with Quickoffice" to include document editing, and it has never demoed editing in action. The company has recently been trying to boost its app count, but perhaps it should have put more effort into securing core functionality instead. A glimmer of hope, though: the same tip-off also suggested that at least some editing capabilities will be introduced "via a downloadable update in Q3 2011". Hey, what's the rush?
Microsoft details SkyDrive integration with Windows Phone Mango (video)
We already knew Windows Phone Mango would include SkyDrive functionality, but Microsoft has now released a few more details on some of the cloud storage features we can expect to see when the update rolls out, later this year. With the update, SkyDrive users will be able to share their stored photos via text message, e-mail or IM, and to upload their videos to the cloud with the touch of a button. They'll also be able to browse, share and edit uploaded MS Office documents directly from their handhelds, while searching through their entire SkyDrive via the Office Hub. Storage limits remain capped at 25GB, though Microsoft says we should expect to see more cloud-based features roll out in the near future (including a revamped, HTML5-based SkyDrive web interface), so more changes may very well be on the horizon. Soar past the break for some demo videos from Redmond, along with a hands-on clip from WinRumors.
Google Docs gets an Android app, we go hands-on with tiny spreadsheets (video)
Staring at spreadsheets crushed down to unreadable sizes on a 4-inch phone screen is far from pleasurable but, clearly there is a demand. In fact, we've been clamoring for a proper Google Docs app for ages, even though sometimes we're not entirely sure why. It was only a matter of time before Google finally got around to appeasing us mobile workaholics and put an official app in the Android Market. Well, our masochistic prayers were answered -- the Mighty Goog unleashed the new, native Google Docs for Android app and we rushed on over to the Market, clicked the install button, and gave it a whirl. %Gallery-122400%
Icon Notebook: textual communication avenue for the Microsoft Word averse
It looks like a document. It's chock-full of documents. But not Microsoft Word documents. Only documents that could dream of one day being scanned in and converted to a Word document. It's the Icon Notebook, brought to you by the brilliant minds at Brigada Creativa, and it's on sale now for €6.95 ($9.34) direct from Spain. Which is a whole lot cheaper than a Word license, no matter the font you're talking in.
Rumor: iPad config page mentions camera
It's already more or less a not-so-well-kept secret that the iPad will very likely have a camera eventually, but just in case you needed yet another hint that that's the case, Apple has provided. AppleInsider found a security document over on Apple's website (I think this is the one [PDF] though it appears to have been edited) that says the iPad has a restriction setting that will cut off "use of the camera" with an Exchange policy or a certain configuration. That would indeed seem to indicate that some future form of the iPad will come camera-equipped. Or does it? While AppleInsider's document explicitly shows an iPad, here's the iPhone Security Overview, and it looks like a lot of the text was cut-and-pasted from the document for the little handset to the one about Apple's tablet. It's possible this is just a typo, basically -- whoever was writing the new document for the iPad just forgot to take out the part about restricting the camera. Since both devices run iOS, there are probably a lot of similarities between each, and a lot of reused documentation. Even if this is just a mistake, though, the building evidence for a future iPad camera is hard to ignore. It's a sure thing that we'll eventually see an updated version of the iPad hardware, and once that comes around, it's hard to believe Apple isn't strongly considering putting a camera (or two) on the device. [via Engadget]
Paper explains EVE's quasi-democratic council in extreme detail
If you had any doubt at all that EVE Online is the thinking man's MMO, you won't any longer. CCP has released a 20 page paper in PDF format describing the new Council of Stellar Management, and you know you're in for something good when the paper starts off with the social theories of the Greek philosopher Aristotle.This is one of the times when it's particularly clear just how bizarre and interesting it is to be writing about virtual societies. This is the stuff of cyberpunk novels and Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes. CCP has produced something like the first draft of a constitution (with notes) for a representative government, with references to John Locke's social contract theory and everything else you'd expect from such a document. No doubt EVE's scheming political players are already looking through the document for loopholes and potential abuses. It may not be long before EVE players are having debates about campaign finance reform and separation of powers.Richard Bartle doesn't think this will work. Whether it works or not, though, it'll be damned interesting. At the very least, it will be more fodder for discussion relating to Hardcore Casual's EVE Challenge.[Via MMORPG]
Documents To Go 10 does Office 2007 on Palm OS
Ah, Docments To Go -- a constant, trusty pillar for countless PDA users for what seems like an eternity. Ironically, one could argue that DataViz's suite loaded on a high-res Palm OS device actually makes a better platform for loading up Office docs on the go than a Windows Mobile device does (certainly Smartphones, that's for darned sure). On cue, DataViz has dropped Documents To Go 10 for Palm OS, which rocks support for Office 2007 documents -- an important feature to be sure, considering that Microsoft totally threw 2007's file formats in the mixer. Even though Palm OS (Garnet OS, if you will) is getting embarrassingly long in the tooth at this point, we guess it's a comforting feeling to know that the third-party powerhouses are hanging in there with hot new apps -- or, as the case may be, worthy upgrades to old ones.
Widget Watch: ThinkFree/Office doc viewer (Dashboard, Yahoo! and Google)
If, for one reason or another, you don't have or don't want Microsoft Office installed, but you still need to view a doc, spreadsheet or presentation, the ThinkFree Online office crew have created a couple widgets (and even a Google module) to help ease your pain. I haven't been following ThinkFree's products very closely, but one of their services called the ThinkFree Viewer lets anyone publish a document online by linking to their web-based viewer - this removes a visitor's need to have one compatible app or another installed just to be able to view the file.To make things even easier for those attachments you receive or the occasional document you simply have lying around, they have now released a new Dashboard widget and a Google module (for their Personalized Homepage), in addition to the Yahoo! Widget we blogged way back in May. These all work essentially the same way: drag and drop a compatible ThinkFree or Microsoft Office doc onto the widget, and it will upload the file to ThinkFree's temporary online viewer so you can crack it open with the least amount of hassle. Of course, there might be limitations to what their viewer can render, but this should make things a little easier for non-Office Office users out there.
Kodak intros 200 page-per-minute i1860 commercial scanner
With all these newfangled fingerprint / retina scanners in the news lately, it's easy to forget about the plain ole document-reading variety, but Kodak is bringing it all back into focus by unveiling its "fastest production scanner ever," the i1860. The mammoth-sized device captures images at up to 200 pages per minute, and sports a snazzy color touchscreen as well as "automatic height-adjustment" for those long, cold nights spent running year-end reports. Its SurePath technology, in conjunction with "three ultrasonic multi-feed detection sensors," will supposedly help you avoid an office worker's worst nightmare (paper jams during crunch time), and the five output formats should handle just about any obscure map or overcrowded spreadsheet you throw at it. The machine also touts a 300dpi optical resolution, 500 sheet feeder, JPEG / TIFF file export functionality, and FireWire connectivity. Should you work in a heavily overloaded archiving business, or just have ridiculous amounts of cash to burn, you can pick up have this 480-pound beast delivered in December for a whopping £55,000 ($104,605).[Via BIOS]
