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Steve Wozniak Invests In Robot-Powered Paper-Digitizing Startup (businessinsider.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the investing-in-automation dept.

Steve Wozniak -- along with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer -- have invested in an automated paper-digitization company named Ripcord, which formally launched on Thursday. An anonymous reader quotes VentureBeat: Based in Hayward, California, Ripcord has machines that can scan, index, and categorize paper records to make them searchable through companies' existing systems, via the cloud... Upon receipt, Ripcord unboxes the files and passes them to its machines, which scan, upload, and convert the content into searchable PDFs. Ripcord says that the conversion and classification process is around 80 percent automated and covers handling, the removal of fasteners (e.g. staples), and scanning.
"It sounds silly at first, but a really big part of the reason why this has never been done before are staples," explains Business Insider. "Existing scanner systems require humans to pull staples, separate three-ring binders, unclip paper clips, and occasionally even unstrip duct tape before they can go through the system -- otherwise they jam up the works."

"Our robots work their magic," explains Ripcord's web site. They're charging .004 cents per page -- for every month that it's stored in the cloud.

7 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. So many questions by elrous0 · · Score: 2

    1) Can your robots read bad handwriting? Because a lot of paper documents have handwritten info.
    2) What kind of security/privacy guarantees can your offer, and do you have adequate insurance to cover claims from a major hack or data breach?
    3) Can I offload my documents from your cloud service to a different service or to my own servers?

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:So many questions by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2

      #3 is the one that matters. Automatic scanning is great but why on earth would I want to store the resulting files with them at all?

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    2. Re:So many questions by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 2

      Is OCR that good yet? I understand that PDF can store the image, along with the text metadata for searching. So the text can be improved while retaining visual fidelity for when OCR improves. Or when an intern deciphers the handwriting.

      But as you say, I would want to do a lot of cleanup that relies on local availability, not cloud nonsense.

      And mid trial when AWS dies due to a typo, I'm going to go apeshit and your design is defective. So they have piles of disclaimers which automatically make this a suboptimal solution.

  2. Re:Steve Wozniak, dressed as a robot. by arth1 · · Score: 2

    Woz' involvement here seems to be rather less than what the clickbait title indicates. He's put money in an angel company who decided to invest in this company..

  3. Re:No, thank you by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

    Some stuff needs to be stored for 15 years. At 0.004 a month per page, that's $0.72 per page. At that price, it's WAY cheaper to have someone remove the staples and scan it in locally, and not be dependent on them staying in business, not getting hacked, or raising prices.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  4. Re:No, thank you by reboot246 · · Score: 2

    There's no way our company would ever risk the information we have getting out where it's possible to be hacked, or worse yet, sold by this "paper-digitizing" company. We don't know who they are and what they'll do with the copies they keep, and you just know they'll keep copies.

  5. Re:No, thank you by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

    So the summary was written by someone using VerizonMath.

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    #DeleteFacebook