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Reply To: | VICUG-L: Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List |
Date: | Thu, 3 Dec 1998 22:43:21 -0500 |
Content-Type: | TEXT/PLAIN |
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this is a little blerb from a newsletter called "The Rapidly Changing Face of
Computing." http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc
Bud Kennedy
* Scan It Again, Sam --
[Image] Scanners have become so common and so inexpensive these
days that they're generally nothing to write home about. Even
small handheld scanners can do a good job (assuming you can
work around their cable's limitations and you can carefully
align the several scans it takes to capture a full sheet of
paper.) But that's about to change, because HP's new $699
CapShare 910 (http://www.capshare.hp.com) dispenses with the
wire (it will hold about 50 pages before sending them on to
your PC via its infra red or serial port). And, most
interesting to me, this monochrome scanner accommodates its
human user, rather than the other way around.
Let's say you're going to scan a standard page. Instead of
(trying) to make sure that each stripe of the page you scan is
parallel to the last one and just barely overlaps it, you just
roll the CapShare around over the page in any random fashion!
So long as you roll it over EVERY portion, regardless of when
or in what direction, when you finish, the CapShare will
instantly reconstitute the entire image -- seamlessly!
The scanner did a fine job, but what REALLY impressed me was
HP's use of processing power to do the difficult tasks of
matching up the pieces of an image -- so that we humans didn't
have to. Instead of coming up with a user interface that did a
better job of cajoling us to "scan between the lines," they
used processing power and "smarts" to make the "lines"
irrelevant.
As Moore's Law continues to make ever-more processing power
ever-less expensive, there are tremendous opportunities to put
it to use, as HP as done here, to put the "complexity burden"
on the appliance and not on the user. I wouldn't be at all
surprised to find that such innovative "user friendly" features
make, or break, future computing appliances.
Bud Kennedy
email: [log in to unmask]
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