scanR - MoDaCo exclusive Beta offer!

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

Steve from scanR has been in touch with me re: a very special MoDaCo exclusive Beta offer around their new product!

I'll let him give you the lowdown personally...

Tired of spending hours and hours copying whiteboard diagrams down into a notebook? And then STILL having no way to share?

scanR for Whiteboards to the rescue! It's a Windows Mobile 5 application that, coupled with the camera in your phone, saves you from all that ink-stained tedium. Fire up the application, take a picture of the whiteboard, and get a PDF delivered right into your email inbox that you can send on to others!

scanR doesn't just forward the picture, it does its best to correct everything --look at:

Before

and after:

scanR is currently running a beta being offered ONLY to MoDaCo readers.

What's in it for you? Free service, even after the beta ends -- all you have to do is participate!

What's in it for us? Well, we want the feedback and comments from the smartest group of people we could find -- and that's YOU!

The scanR beta application (for Pocket PC only) can be found at http://www.scanR.com/mobile/beta2/scanR_b2.cab.

Note that the beta build is slightly slower than what we'll have in production because it generates extended logging (useful if you hit a bug to let us figure out what's going on). The debug logs won't exceed 1MB in size, so don't worry too much! And the final version will be much, much faster!

Steve

Spookily, I just happened to read a piece on scanR today over at MobileCrunch. My first thoughts were 'what does this app do that I can't already do with my camera and email?', but after further investigation and seeing the excellent manipulation that the server automatically does to the pictures, i'm sold.

Give it a go, and post your thoughts here... besides, free lifetime service is not to be sniffed at either ;)

P

[Guest scanRsteve]

One quick note -- for those of you using the XDA "Atom" with the 2.0 megapixel camera (I know O2 markets it, not sure who else), there's currently a bug that causes the camera to only operate at 320x240 resolution, which results in the application saying "sorry, your image is too small, please take another picture."

Steve

[Guest leshemnoam]

hi just tried it on my t-mobile vario(HTC wizard) and i keep getting a "no photo was taken.." after i press the center button, i can see the title(on the top left) changing quickly from scanR to camera to start and back to scanR but nothing happens. this app sounds really helpful so i hope I'll figure it out....

[Guest Webreaper]

Looks cool. Wonder if they can combine it with OCR/handwriting recognition to convert the image to text? ;)

[Guest yoda6]

hi just tried it on my t-mobile vario(HTC wizard) and i keep getting a "no photo was taken.." after i press the center button, i can see the title(on the top left) changing quickly from scanR to camera to start and back to scanR but nothing happens. this app sounds really helpful so i hope I'll figure it out....

Exactly the same conditions and results for me. Shame, looks good. Hope they can get it fixed.

[Guest Wozbacca]

ive got a vario with the new O2 rom on it, and it works fine. i took a few pics of page prints and the results are barely usable due to the lighting and the poor camera on the wizard. but on a white board it should be fine.

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

Liking it!

I needed a reboot after install (HTC Prophet), but it seems to work now.

One thing is that it sets the camera to 1.3 MegaPixel instead of the highest quality 2 MegaPixel, and sets JPEG to Fine rather than SuperFine?

P

[Guest mini_man]

Its a shame this isnt for Smartphone, it would be a really great use for when you cant be bothered to copy long passages on the whiteboard for homework at school.

EDIT : I think it does work according to the website this is possible apart from you have to email it to the people. Does the PPC Version convert it on the PPC??

[Guest]

Worked 1st time on my Prophet, its fairly slow (opening and switching to camera etc) but then the prophet isn#'t exactly the fastest PPC. I like the ability to postpone your uploads, great for us backwards countries without unlimited data tarrifs!!

OCR would be a nice idea (as stated above). Not sure exactly how much use I could get out of this but for people who attend college, meeting etc I reckon it could be pretty handy.

will keep using it for now and report any faults

atb

gerryR

[Guest jcostantino]

Smartphone client was just released today according to their download page. I'm going to install it in a bit and see if it's any better than the email service.

it's a shame that my 2125's camera is SO TERRIBLE though. Great idea but I'll probably never be able to use it until I upgrade (again).

Its a shame this isnt for Smartphone, it would be a really great use for when you cant be bothered to copy long passages on the whiteboard for homework at school.

EDIT : I think it does work according to the website this is possible apart from you have to email it to the people. Does the PPC Version convert it on the PPC??

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

Woo, cool! :P

But where? ;)

P

[Guest jcostantino]

Here

And I would just like to reiterate that my 2125's cam is garbage :P

The app doesn't do much more than email the picture for you AND it only does whiteboard mode. Emailing the pictures to [email protected] or [email protected] is seemingly easier and faster since once you capture a picture you can hit the Send command and drop it in an email. This just automates that part but seems to take longer overall.

' date='Apr 20 2006, 16:07' post='733174']Woo, cool! ;)

But where? ;)

P

[Guest kevinsephiroth]

Its a shame this isnt for Smartphone, it would be a really great use for when you cant be bothered to copy long passages on the whiteboard for homework at school.

EDIT : I think it does work according to the website this is possible apart from you have to email it to the people. Does the PPC Version convert it on the PPC??

well i totaly agree with you , but, in amphitheatre in university, i will have to got a 10megapixels to take a photo...

;)

[Guest wills]

I presume we post here for feedback to receive the free version?

Anyway I have installed this and the app doesn't open the camera. I have attached the log but here's where it fails:

[2006/04/21 10:12:31] TakePhoto(): SHCameraCapture() returned 1

[2006/04/21 10:12:31] TakePhoto(): SHCameraCapture() returned an error message [6]: 'The handle is invalid.

I am using the HTC Charmer (T-Mobile Compact II) WM5 PE

Also in the Account screen can you make the password hidden i.e. ***** instead of clear text?

thanks

log1.txt

Edited April 21, 2006 by wills

[Guest]

I know this is only beta but one thing I did notice is there is no mention of security anywhere, and while I could live with my "Test sticky for scanR" falling into the wrong hands some people may be using it for more confidential documents.

Just a though

atb

gerryR

[Guest battletank]

Using it on a Universal (AKU2/Qtek) - works brilliantly. It has already been used several times in real-life situations (not just the 'look, I wrote this on a whiteboard' test that I'm sure scanR have been inundated with). As someone who writes on whiteboards all the time, this is a really valuable tool. At least three colleagues have seen the results and downloaded it for their devices...

[Guest scanRsteve]

Hi guys! Sorry I've been down with the flu and just got back to checking this out. I love the feedback.

There is indeed a Smartphone version on the scanR website; for those of you interested, PM me and I'll arrange for a non-trial version to appear. If you can't wait a couple of days, grab the trial version from

http://www.scanR.com/mobile/

For people with errors, can you fire off a description to [email protected]? That allows me to get it a formal ticket number -- which for 'errors' we definitely want. You should find logs on the device which you can include (and will be critical for us)

I'm surprised the HTC wizard is having a problem, although I will admit I don't have a t-mobile branded unit. (I've got a 8125, a PPC-6700, a qtek 9100, and something else -- but not the t-mobile version. Fortunately, once I see the logs, I have a t-mobile store near me and I can get one).

Again, we really appreciate the feedback. we obviously want to build what people want -- it's a heck of a lot easier than trying to convince you to want what we build! ;)

Steve

[Guest wills]

Hi Steve -

Email has been sent

thanks

Tim

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

I will do the same! ;)

P

[Guest Shuflie]

Just sent off logfiles and an explaination of the problem I experienced on my MDA pro. Sent it from my hotmail address by mistake (one of the problems of not checking which email account is active on an MDA pro), the main logfile has my registered email address in it though so you should be able to trace it to me. I've noticed that it defaulted to 640x480, just trying another test at 1280x1024.

[Guest scanRsteve]

Again, everyone, I appreciate the feedback. I'm headed into a meeting in about two hours to start running down some of the issues we've seen.

I am trying to get the latest smartphone build that's not a trial version onto the beta site -- as another interim step I've put a cab file up, so at least those people who want to do an OTA install direct to their smartphone can do so.

http://www.scanR.com/mobile/beta2/scanRwm5sp.cab

Steve

Edited April 24, 2006 by scanRsteve

[Guest scanRsteve]

Hey guys!

For those with smartphones, can you quickly try this build:

http://www.scanr.com/mobile/beta2/scanR.cab

This should get the job done. It's the current production code (as compared to the b2 code) -- although I've been assured that the b2 code should have worked on smartphones, it's not been tested.

I do agree that the 2125's camera is far from the best 1.3 on the market.

With regards to "why a mobile application at all?" there's a couple of good reasons:

1) speedier to use (I know, just a few steps, but still)

2) carriers tend to truncate MMS -- while it's not an issue at 1.3MP, soon, with 2+ coming onto the market, that will be a big issue.

The app will eventually do documents as well -- the main reason it's not pushing to documents is because documents really require higher resolution to look great, and none of the existing WM phones deliver on that -- yet ;)

Steve

[Guest lovemoose]

Finally had a chance to try this on my wizard - and it's ace! Really VERY handy app. Only problem I had to start with was being an idiot and using the dedicated camera button to take the picture, rather than the centre button. My own fault for being too hasty I think.

I'll try the new build out too.

Cheers Steve! ;)

[Guest leshemnoam]

Finally had a chance to try this on my wizard - and it's ace! Really VERY handy app. Only problem I had to start with was being an idiot and using the dedicated camera button to take the picture, rather than the centre button. My own fault for being too hasty I think.

I'll try the new build out too.

Cheers Steve! ;)

hi lovemoose,

which wizard are you useing? i tried it on my vario and it didn't work...also could you tell me what ROM version you have?

thanks

[Guest lovemoose]

hi lovemoose,

which wizard are you useing? i tried it on my vario and it didn't work...also could you tell me what ROM version you have?

thanks

It's a UK Vario, but I haven't upgraded the rom yet - build no is 14406.1.1.1. Dunno if that's much help, but good luck!