Finally business card scanning that actually works! (Developers needed.)
Anyone who attends conferences or frequently meets new people for work knows the frustration of business card data entry. Reading and entering contact information into a laptop or mobile device is dreary and too often required work. There are business card scanners on the market that claim to make life easier. But they generally have a hardware component - meaning one more thing to carry - and don’t really work.
ABBYY, a Russian company formed nearly two decades ago that has grown to 600 employees, introduced a new version of a mobile optical character recognition (OCR) utility. Their software captures data using your smartphone’s camera, automatically extracts contact information including phone numbers, company names and email addresses, and intelligently populates your address book.
What makes this utility different from others on the market is that it works — flawlessly on a variety of cards we threw at it. Despite differing card layouts and even foreign names and addresses, the software correctly identified fields and entered information without spelling errors. There is an easy method for correcting mistakes, which was demonstrated to us. But the magic of ABBYY’s software is that you really don’t need it.
Unfortunately, while a fully functioning Windows Mobile version exists, it’s not being made available directly to consumers. The ABBYY Mobile OCR software development toolkit (SDK) is for license to developers only, who ABBYY anticipates will implement it in a variety of end user applications.
Software developers take notice!
This utility works on cameras with 2 or more megapixels. ABBYY’s SDK supports a variety of platforms.
Check out this exclusive video of ABBYY’s Mobile OCR in action!
Related Links
Buy Treo smarphones, software and accessories
Buy Windows Mobile smartphones, software and accessories
What was hot (and not!) at CTIA Wireless
Treo 800w leaked image (plus CTIA scuttlebutt!)
CTIA 2007 : Microsoft press event - EXCLUSIVE video report
ABBYY develops OCR / ICR / OMR, data capture and linguistic software
Filed under: Editorials
Loading ...
“This utility works on cameras with 2 or more megapixels”
Ummm… yeah. Palm had a presenter at the 700p rollout that had an incredible app that could convert and send info written on a whiteboard. It was really neat and got everyone excited - but the $600.00 Treo 700p didn’t have a camera that supports that resolution.
I wondered what that company was even doing there - as it’s only purpose seemed to be pointing out yet another obvious improvement that Palm skimped on to save a few shekels. More great innovation killed at the gate by Palm.
That was the 700p nearly a couple years ago…. now we have the 755 and it *STILL* can’t use software like this. Of the myriad variety of cell phones being manufactured, it’s ridiculous that the expensive-end Treo gets a junk camera. Palm loses sales and credibility, Treo owners lose the ability to leverage available technology. All for the cost savings in providing a cheaper camera. Just once I’d like to see Palm *EXCEED* expectations.
I still wonder what that vendor was doing at the Treo 700p rollout when there wasn’t/isn’t a 2mp Treo available - even now.
Palm is making a 2 Mpixel Treo, it’s the 500v with the WM6 operating sistem; ehm, vodafone is selling it, but it is available.
If You talk about Treo’s with the PalmOS I agree, no Treo with a decent camera around to buy.
Come on, even 2 megapixels palm lenses are bad quality, instead of a 640×480 crappy picture, you get the same one but 1280×1024 :) size does not ONLY matters, rather lens quality is important as well as maybe a flash …
Yes, speaking of PalmOS. But the other points about lens quality and flash apply too.
Odd the Treo STILL doesn’t even have an LED flash built-in, even throwaway phones are including them nowadays.
Better hardware, leads to-» Better applications, leads to-» more demand for the product. Skimping on seemingly “minor” things like a camera end up devaluing the device later as innovative software like this comes along.
Wait a second - WHAT?!?!
Why did this article appear on this site?
Who is this “WEBMASTER” and does he/she even OWN a treo?
I know Treo’s are past their heyday and Palm is struggling to survive in a world they helped to create and THEREFORE this website can get desperate for something relevant to talk about but really, this app has no value to Treo owners because we can’t use it!
WHat are you going to review next? Push to Talk technology?