LOW PRICE SCANNER OFFERS PHOTO RECONSTRUCTION
As I see it, most computer peripherals today fall into one of three categories. The first category is "Mandatory." Examples of mandatory peripherals would be a monitor of some kind, a keyboard and mouse. Every computer must have some kind of screen be it big, small, color, flat, CRT or whatever. But you have to be able to see the output so having a screen is a must. And unless you are heavily into voice recognition, chances are you are going to need a keyboard onto which you can type and some kind of input device such as a mouse or trackball.
The second category I would call "Essential." While it is true that you could use a computer without one of these devices, chances are your ability to produce productive results would be almost nonexistent without them. So I define Essential peripherals as meaning the devices you should have. They are not mandatory but invaluable nonetheless. Example of these are modems be they of the dial up or broadband variety, printers, hard and optical drives.
The third and last category I define as being "Effective." If you have the need for it, then it is a peripheral that you will find to be effective in solving your particular set of problems. I believe that most all of the other available computer peripherals in the world today fall into this last and vast category.
The reason I wanted to define these three categories was to point out an interesting observation about the last two categories. I believe that from time to time, a peripheral or the class a peripheral falls into will sometimes move from the third and into the second category. And I believe that's just what has happened to the flatbed scanner.
Used to be that flatbed scanners cost well over a thousand dollars, were large, heavy and bulky devices that made lots of noise, were complicated to operate, had a single purpose and limited functionality. Basically, when you needed to transfer a printed image from paper into the computer, you used a scanner and that was pretty much it. But since today's scanners are being used for so many different applications, I believe that having a scanner has now become "Essential."
 Microtek has just introduced their newest flatbed model, the ScanMaker i320. This $149.99 scanner incorporates both Kodak's DIGITAL ICE technology that was introduced with their more expensive 6800 model and Microtek's ColoRescue photo reconstruction systems. The ScanMaker i320 lets you automatically reconstruct surface damaged photos by literally removing cracks and other physical defects in just a few minutes. The speed is made possible in part due to the fact that the systems are built directly into the scanner's hardware, thus removing any additional processing-intensive tasks from the computer's microprocessor. In addition, the ColoRescue system restores other imperfections such as photographs with colors that have become faded and dull. The technology restores these images back to their original hues, saturation and brilliance in an automatic process that involves no interaction with the user. With the combination of both technologies in one scanning process, the ScanMaker i320 empowers its users with the ability to restore a photograph back to its original pristine condition without needing the expertise to accomplish such as task or requiring the additional expense of special software.
And that's not even mentioning all the other abilities such as optical character recognition (OCR) that scans an image of text and converts it into text you can import directly into a word processor, or importing images directly into email, all accomplished with a touch of one of the many buttons found on the ScanMaker i320's front panel.
The ScanMaker i320 works with both Windows, and Macintosh running OS 9 and OS X. You can check it all out at Microtek's website at www.microtekusa.com. While there, check out their ScanMaker i900 model that offers even more features at a slightly higher price.
Given all you can do with a flatbed scanner these days such as the ones from Microtek, I say that definitely moves the flatbed scanner from Effective to Essential.
www.microtekusa.com |
