Book-Digitizing Robots

Makarand writes "Robotic digitization systems are the new help available to complete voluminous scanning tasks. Robots that can turn the pages of books and newspaper volumes and attain scanning speeds of more than 1000 pages/hour are now available. They even use puffs of compressed air to separate sticky pages!"

Comments

Freedom 'Bots

[rdewald]

I think there is a touch of naivete in this notion:

"Think about the power of bringing our library to little schools in the middle of Africa," Keller said. "Would it make a difference for those who now have their minds closed to the idea of democracy?"

I am not sure it would. It might turn them on to the idea of thinking for themselves, though. That could have interesting consequences. Unfortunately, just this very possiblity is threatening to those who are now profiting from their ignorance. These people are likely in a position to be gatekeepers for the dissemination of information.

But, having a robot do something which is enhanced by mindless repetition is a natural robotic application. Then having that application be something that could enable political liberation is a interesting twist of the old "robots in service to humanity" ideals. I'm not so sure that those holding the reins are going to be so interested in this--call me cynical.

What I would like to see is a similar device for converting analog recordings, in whatever form be at tape, vinyl, wax cylinders, to an open digitized format and then have those recording made available in like fashion. It might be just as interesting to turn those kids in Africa on to Mozart, or oral arguments from the Supreme Court.

Project Gutenberg

[Mechanik]

What do we need to do to get one of these donated to Project Gutenberg? Right now one of the biggest things holding them up is a lack of volunteers to manually scan the books.


Mechanik