7 ms·

Ion's Book Saver personal scanner converts your books to digital

27 points by edw519 16y ago

light3 16y ago
Now all that is needed is something that automatically flips pages :)
sandofsky 16y ago
The scanning process sounds sounds monotonous enough that it isn't worth it for most books. I'd just shell out the 10 bucks and get a perfect digital copy from the Amazon store. However, textbook publishers should be terrified. Imagine if N classmates agreed to split the cost of one copy. For many college students, the savings is worth more than a couple hours of free time.
- petercooper 16y ago
  It'd also be interesting if publishers of older, established books could scan their own books and sell them. There are quite a few books I own that I'd like in PDF format that aren't available in any digital formats (though even if they were, I'd prefer an "original formatting" PDF than a Kindle Mobi with their typically shoddy typography and car crash diagrams).
- donw 16y ago
  I have a large number of books that aren't available on Amazon, especially foreign-language books. If this can produce good-quality images, suitable for OCR/PDF, then it becomes a lot easier than building my own scanning machine.
JoshCole 16y ago
I might be interested in this for some of my heavier books. I got an art history book for one of my courses earlier, picking it up is like picking up a gallon of milk. I'm not looking forward to lugging that around between classes. I don't think I'll get this though. There is a problem with ebooks that makes me value paper books. Taking notes. It is so easy to take notes inline and connect ideas while reading a paper book, but the interface to do the same sort of thing with an ebook sucks.
- haribilalic 16y ago
  What sort of DPI would be acceptable for an art history book? Their other document scanners can scan up to 600 DPI.
jakewalker 16y ago
Lift and turn makes this just this side of not useful. If they could only get it to autodetect when the page is turned (no button to press) without having to lift the entire device on each page turn, they'd really have something. People will page through a book for 10 or 15 minutes, but they won't lift, turn, press a button and repeat for an entire book, which will probably take an hour or more.
xtacy 16y ago
Google's book scanner apparently uses infrared to detect the orientation of the page and hence adjust for the position of the page: http://www.npr.org/blogs/library/2009/04/the_granting_of_patent_7508978.html http://www.npr.org/blogs/library/2009/04/the_granting_of_pat... It's unclear what the speed of the scanning device is though.
nradov 16y ago
Does the software include good OCR? If it's just taking a bitmap picture then it's not very useful. But if it can produce text files with no DRM then I could read the content on any device.
- haribilalic 16y ago
  You can pick up a copy of AABBYY FineReader from $50. If the software wasn't able to OCR and generated only images, you could run it through FineReader and spit out a PDF or text document. Edit: The website[1] says "Includes software that automatically detects text for further editing and archiving". 1. http://www.ionaudio.com/booksaver http://www.ionaudio.com/booksaver
ck2 16y ago
There should never be any fair use concerns if you own the book. This is like owning the CD version of an album and making mp3s for your own use. Despite what the RIAA says now, they once said it was fine and I agree with that logic for books as well. However I want a book scanner like Google does it, where there is a laser that measures the bending of the pages and can flatten the image accordingly based on the measurements.
AndyParkinson 16y ago
I could see using this to take old Moleskine notebooks and digitizing them for long-term reference so I can junk the physical notebook. That kind of info might be invaluable. For everything else shelling out $10 for a kindle book seems like a better use of time and money.
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  If you're going to junk the notebook anyway, you can remove the pages by cutting the spine and then use a standard scanner with a document feeder attachment.
elviejo 16y ago
Of course you can also hack your own: http://www.diybookscanner.org/ http://www.diybookscanner.org/
- daniel_reetz 16y ago
  Thanks for the mention - we're watching the Ion with interest. It's pretty obvious that the Ion design is inspired by the DIY book scanner builders out there (DIYBookScanner, BKRPR). I hope they do a good job of it. Honestly, I'll be shocked if they meet their claimed $149 price point and have quality beyond webcam-capture. If they do, it will be an awesome device, so I hope they do. Also, right now, they claim 7 seconds for two pages, which is a damned eternity. If anyone has any pet projects that they need motivation or advice to do, we've got a really active community of book scanners, hackers, and builders developing new technology daily. If it involves a camera and a book, we've probably tried it and the locals are quite friendly.
  - 2mur 16y ago
    Thanks for all of your work on this stuff dan!
    - daniel_reetz 16y ago
      You're totally welcome -- I'm absolutely grateful to all the people that shared back. It's kept me going this whole time.
  - pontifier 16y ago
    I went to home depot yesterday to get everything I need (except the cameras which I got a few days ago), and am going to start building my new standard scanner today... I'm super excited.
    - daniel_reetz 16y ago
      Hey pontifier -- that's great! Congratulations! Be sure to check out clemd973's build thread -- he really worked out a lot of the problems with the New Standard. Link: http://www.diybookscanner.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=698&start=0 http://www.diybookscanner.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=... Also, feel free to email/PM me. danreetz/gmail
tocomment 16y ago
This gives me an idea for a startup. A book scanning service. People mail you a book, you scan it, send them a mobi or PDF file and mail the book back. You could even scan it for free if they elect to let you keep the book and resell it. I'm sure you'd need a good copyright lawyer but maybe the company could start out under the radar?
- kazuya 16y ago
  Several book scanning services have already been available in Japan for months, though books are cut and trimmed so that they can be scanned using automatic feeders. Usually you pay a dollar or so for ~300 pages, and another for OCR. > I'm sure you'd need a good copyright lawyer but maybe the company could start out under the radar? Yeah their legality is dubious; I guess they make it in a hit-and-run way.
akeck 16y ago
It looks like a small integrated version of Daniel Reetz's scanner. http://www.diybookscanner.org/ http://www.diybookscanner.org/

27 points by edw519 16y ago

Now all that is needed is something that automatically flips pages :)

The scanning process sounds sounds monotonous enough that it isn't worth it for most books. I'd just shell out the 10 bucks and get a perfect digital copy from the Amazon store. However, textbook publishers should be terrified. Imagine if N classmates agreed to split the cost of one copy. For many college students, the savings is worth more than a couple hours of free time.

petercooper 16y ago
It'd also be interesting if publishers of older, established books could scan their own books and sell them. There are quite a few books I own that I'd like in PDF format that aren't available in any digital formats (though even if they were, I'd prefer an "original formatting" PDF than a Kindle Mobi with their typically shoddy typography and car crash diagrams).
donw 16y ago
I have a large number of books that aren't available on Amazon, especially foreign-language books. If this can produce good-quality images, suitable for OCR/PDF, then it becomes a lot easier than building my own scanning machine.

JoshCole 16y ago

I might be interested in this for some of my heavier books. I got an art history book for one of my courses earlier, picking it up is like picking up a gallon of milk. I'm not looking forward to lugging that around between classes. I don't think I'll get this though. There is a problem with ebooks that makes me value paper books. Taking notes. It is so easy to take notes inline and connect ideas while reading a paper book, but the interface to do the same sort of thing with an ebook sucks.

haribilalic 16y ago
What sort of DPI would be acceptable for an art history book? Their other document scanners can scan up to 600 DPI.

jakewalker 16y ago

Lift and turn makes this just this side of not useful. If they could only get it to autodetect when the page is turned (no button to press) without having to lift the entire device on each page turn, they'd really have something. People will page through a book for 10 or 15 minutes, but they won't lift, turn, press a button and repeat for an entire book, which will probably take an hour or more.

xtacy 16y ago

Google's book scanner apparently uses infrared to detect the orientation of the page and hence adjust for the position of the page: http://www.npr.org/blogs/library/2009/04/the_granting_of_patent_7508978.html http://www.npr.org/blogs/library/2009/04/the_granting_of_pat... It's unclear what the speed of the scanning device is though.

nradov 16y ago

Does the software include good OCR? If it's just taking a bitmap picture then it's not very useful. But if it can produce text files with no DRM then I could read the content on any device.

haribilalic 16y ago
You can pick up a copy of AABBYY FineReader from $50. If the software wasn't able to OCR and generated only images, you could run it through FineReader and spit out a PDF or text document. Edit: The website[1] says "Includes software that automatically detects text for further editing and archiving". 1. http://www.ionaudio.com/booksaver http://www.ionaudio.com/booksaver

ck2 16y ago

There should never be any fair use concerns if you own the book. This is like owning the CD version of an album and making mp3s for your own use. Despite what the RIAA says now, they once said it was fine and I agree with that logic for books as well. However I want a book scanner like Google does it, where there is a laser that measures the bending of the pages and can flatten the image accordingly based on the measurements.

AndyParkinson 16y ago

I could see using this to take old Moleskine notebooks and digitizing them for long-term reference so I can junk the physical notebook. That kind of info might be invaluable. For everything else shelling out $10 for a kindle book seems like a better use of time and money.

ZeroGravitas 16y ago
If you're going to junk the notebook anyway, you can remove the pages by cutting the spine and then use a standard scanner with a document feeder attachment.

elviejo 16y ago

Of course you can also hack your own: http://www.diybookscanner.org/ http://www.diybookscanner.org/

daniel_reetz 16y ago
Thanks for the mention - we're watching the Ion with interest. It's pretty obvious that the Ion design is inspired by the DIY book scanner builders out there (DIYBookScanner, BKRPR). I hope they do a good job of it. Honestly, I'll be shocked if they meet their claimed $149 price point and have quality beyond webcam-capture. If they do, it will be an awesome device, so I hope they do. Also, right now, they claim 7 seconds for two pages, which is a damned eternity. If anyone has any pet projects that they need motivation or advice to do, we've got a really active community of book scanners, hackers, and builders developing new technology daily. If it involves a camera and a book, we've probably tried it and the locals are quite friendly.
- 2mur 16y ago
  Thanks for all of your work on this stuff dan!
  - daniel_reetz 16y ago
    You're totally welcome -- I'm absolutely grateful to all the people that shared back. It's kept me going this whole time.
- pontifier 16y ago
  I went to home depot yesterday to get everything I need (except the cameras which I got a few days ago), and am going to start building my new standard scanner today... I'm super excited.
  - daniel_reetz 16y ago
    Hey pontifier -- that's great! Congratulations! Be sure to check out clemd973's build thread -- he really worked out a lot of the problems with the New Standard. Link: http://www.diybookscanner.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=698&start=0 http://www.diybookscanner.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=... Also, feel free to email/PM me. danreetz/gmail

tocomment 16y ago

This gives me an idea for a startup. A book scanning service. People mail you a book, you scan it, send them a mobi or PDF file and mail the book back. You could even scan it for free if they elect to let you keep the book and resell it. I'm sure you'd need a good copyright lawyer but maybe the company could start out under the radar?

kazuya 16y ago
Several book scanning services have already been available in Japan for months, though books are cut and trimmed so that they can be scanned using automatic feeders. Usually you pay a dollar or so for ~300 pages, and another for OCR. > I'm sure you'd need a good copyright lawyer but maybe the company could start out under the radar? Yeah their legality is dubious; I guess they make it in a hit-and-run way.

akeck 16y ago

It looks like a small integrated version of Daniel Reetz's scanner. http://www.diybookscanner.org/ http://www.diybookscanner.org/