Smart, Intelligent, Flatbed-like Scanners?

MessageDrivenBean asks: "In a Windows-based terminal client environment, I'm looking for a smart flatbed-like scanner. It is okay to connect a scanner to a local USB-port and tunnel that scanner to the remote application on the terminal server. But actually scanning a page produces a lot of data and with a small bandwidth connection it takes like 10 minutes to get all the data in the application. Besides, I only need 2 specific small parts of the page in 300dpi, and JPEG is just fine, no need the get raw data. Does Slashdot know of an intelligent scanner that exposes some sort of API to be efficient in a low-bandwidth terminal client environment?"

Comments

Wrong model?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I guess it would just depend on how incredibly thin your thin client is- why not just write a client side program that handles the scanning, then pushes to the server-side parent application?

I don't know of a single scanner-only that could do what you are asking- most are TWAIN sources. OTOH, you might look into the latest round of Epson Stylus Photoprinters- they might be able to do what you are asking for (as they do it all- scanner, printer, and flash card reader all in one.