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Cell Phone with Camera = Scanner

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the thats-a-clever-idea dept.

An anonymous reader writes "TechJapan has posted a translation of an Impress Watch Article regarding a new technology developed by NEC and the Nara Institute of Science and Technology, that lets people use their cellular phones with cameras as scanners. It says all you have to do is move your phone over the surface of the piece of paper while recording a movie, and the technology (some sort of software I presume) will construct a high resolution image from the individual frames of the video. Here is the original (Japanese) NEC press release." I'd love to see before and afters to see how well this works.

6 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. that's great but... by bsDaemon · · Score: 5, Funny

    does it make phone calls?

    1. Re:that's great but... by Ian+Wolf · · Score: 4, Funny

      You know of all the things we export to other nations: McDonald's, David Hasselhoff, and obnoxious tourists, we should have sent you the Federal Communications Commission, The US Patent Office, and Carrot Top.

      --
      "The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
  2. Re:And I wonder when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    its called a fax machine.

  3. In related news by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 5, Funny

    Stay tuned for the explosive shockumentary, where we demonstrate how two tin cans and a piece of string make for a handy alternative to VoIP.

  4. Re:And I wonder when... by good(k)night · · Score: 3, Funny

    Cell Phone + Camera = Scanner.
    Scanner - Camera = Cell Phone?

    I can make calls from my scanner, unless I have a camera.

    --
    my endian is bigger than yours!
  5. So now we know how the tricorder will involve by johannesg · · Score: 4, Funny
    Years ago as I watched Star Trek, I was always left wondering just how Kirk and Spock managed to control all those alien devices they found. Eventually Bluetooth came around, and I realized it was because soon every device in the universe will have a Bluetooth interface (if you are in the US this may be hard to believe, but bear with me). Clearly the tricorder has a Bluetooth interface as well, which is why it can talk to and even control doomsday weapons, planetary defences, ancient medical equipment, etc.

    That still left the question how the tricorder came into being. Did someone sit down one day and say to himself, "I am going to build myself a tricorder?" That just doesn't seem very likely to me.

    But now I finally figured that out too. The tricorder will evolve from the mobile phone! Every year you can see how more and more sensor functionality is added, while the physical size of the phone is getting smaller and smaller. First they could just acquire audio signals. Then came video signals. Soon it will be able to monitor your heartrate, body temperature, and various other vital signs, and maybe even automatically call 911 if you get into trouble. Sensors for electricity, magnetism, seismic waves, spectral analysis, alien energy, and other things will invariably follow, driven as they are by our lust for gadgets, useless functionality, and the latest and greatest. Meanwhile rest assured that ever-increasing software capabilities will provide the ability to make rudimentary medical diagnosis, do chemical analysis, and contain drivers for every alien Bluetooth-enabled device in a thousand lightyears.

    While we are at it, you can rest assured that the very moment someone develops a universal translator, it will be embedded in a mobile phone.

    So there we have it: the tricorder in a small, handy package. There are only two downsides that I can see: if we are to believe Star Trek, it will at some point lose its communication functionality (Kirk was always using a separate communicator), and based on current trends the battery life may not exceed 2-3 minutes...