scan

Reviewing the results of a ScanCafe order

I've been on a bit of a de-cluttering jag over the past year or so. Too much paper, too much "stuff" around the house. So I've been slowly dumping the junk and selling or donating the rest.

This includes photographs. I had stacks of snapshots of family, friends, places, and so forth sitting around in various drawers and boxes. I had made a half-hearted effort to digitize some of the old slides previously, but scanning is really tedious work. Scanning the hundreds of photos involved here was just more than I realistically felt like tackling.

Over … Read more

Record companies to charge for "earworms"

The recording industry has tried a lot of tricks to shore up their revenues as CD sales have fallen: installing CD anti-coyping software that is almost impossible to remove, suing customers for allegedly downloading songs without paying, and floating the idea of adding a few bucks to monthly ISP bills to compensate rights holders for illegal downloads.

Now, several labels are dreaming up a scheme to charge music fans any time they get a song stuck in their head. The technology is a few years away, but according to several well-placed sources in Hollywood, the labels are funding an organization … Read more

Seitz scanning camera offers 160 megapixels

Got $45,600 burning a hole in your pocket? Try out Seitz Phototechnik's 160-megapixel 6x17 Digital camera. And save a bit more of your allowance for a lens, too.

The mammoth device is able to take an image measuring 60x170mm, a big notch up from high-end SLRs with a 24x36mm frame. It's got huge handgrips on either side that cry out to be grasped, but it's 18 inches wide and weighs 10 pounds, so it looks either like a great workout or tripod material to me.

It can be purchased with a tablet PC to operate it, … Read more

Underexposed blog: links of the day

Best Seat in the House | The Seattle Times - I love Rod Mar's blog about shooting Seattle Seahawks football games. Interesting: lead photo printed with its crooked horizon. I also like to see when he uses his Canon 1D Mark IIN and when his 1D Mark III. He uses both, but with different lenses. Lies, Lies and Adobe Spies - Some carping about peculiarly masked IP address, actually owned by Omniture, that CS3 apps contact. See Adobe response here: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2007/12/whats_with_adob.html Olympus raw codec for Windows Vista - Olympus joins Nikon, Canon, … Read more

LCD monitor designed for the colorblind

This is one of those random facts that, if true, makes one wonder why technology hasn't caught up with reality: More than 200 million people worldwide are thought to be colorblind, according to some estimates, with more than 10 million of them in the United States. If even part of those statistics are accurate, it makes sense that companies would step up efforts to market products for that population.

Although technologies for the colorblind have been developed in the past, Japan's Eizo believes it has come up with a unique system that will allow colorblind individuals to "… Read more

McAfee announces 'triple play' in its consumer releases

McAfee on Monday released its 2008 line of security products, including McAfee VirusScan Plus 2008, McAfee Internet Security 2008, and McAfee Total Protection 2008.

In a move that McAfee hopes will distinguish it from the competition, the company is now offering three user licenses for all its desktop products, and is including its SiteAdvisor site-rating software in each product to protect against online fraud. Finally, McAfee is also including VirusScan mobile protection with its desktop Internet Security and Total Protection products.

This "triple play" perhaps makes McAfee's products more economical, but it remains to be seen if … Read more

LinkScanner Lite exposes malware "surprises" in real time

Those of you who haven't yet installed a link scanning or Web site rating program for your Firefox or IE-based browser should hop to it--and consider using LinkScanner Lite when you do.

I've been using LinkScanner Lite and McAfee Site Adviser on both Firefox and IE browsers. Overkill? No way. Each program serves the greater goal of alerting you to dangerous links but differ in their approaches.… Read more

Get docs from pics with Qipit

Qipit is a free service for turning digital photos into sharable, online documents. It works with any photo taken with a digital camera, or from your mobile phone. Like ScanR (review), Qipit will store and host your photos, and let you rotate them to your heart's content. This works the best with shots of documents taken at an angle, and with whiteboards, business cards, etc. Once uploaded, Qipit will tweak the contrast of your shot, drawing out the text, and doing its best to correct perspective warp. Unlike ScanR however, you're not getting the archival goodness of optical … Read more

Photos: Where ScanEagle drones dare

Unmanned aerial vehicles, "drones" or "UAVs" for short, are getting to be pretty impressive affairs. Target-tracking software allows one drone to fly by its own wits, even above 15,000 feet. Overseen by humans, these planes can chase down a moving vehicle, send reports to a human operator by cell phone, collect photo images and video, and even relay information via VoIP.

Even with the new autonomous capabilities in the ScanEagle, surveillance efforts will often dictate that a human maintain a greater degree of oversight. One major objective of these flyers is to reduce the risk … Read more

MacTech Community News Scan (iPhone App)

It stands to reason some of the first people to own the iPhone will be those in the tech community or at least interested in Mac technology. For all the latest tech news, grab this app for your iPhone that combs all the most popular Mac sites for news stories and information. It offers a great list of headlines along with short summaries so you know what you're getting before you jump to the Web site.

iPhone link: http://www.mactech.com/commapplenewsforiphone.php

Web site link: http://www.mactech.com/