Tech Talk

Tired of manually inputting the contact details of clients gleaned from those name cards onto your computer or phone? Or tired of lugging around that bulky business card reader to hook up to your PC to do the job for you?

With the latest iPhone application Business Card Reader (BCR), all you need is your mobile phone.

First, you take a picture of the business card with the BCR app. Try to take the picture in the best possible lighting, or the app might not be able to recognise the fields. Once you are satisfied with the picture (it should be sharp enough to see all the details), tap “Use”.

The app will then scan and “read” the name card. Using ABBYY’s text recognition technology, it drops the  information into the appropriate fields on the iPhone address book.

The accuracy of the app usually depends on the type of business cards you are scanning. If you are scanning non-standard business cards, BCR might get the details wrong.

Sometimes, the fax number becomes the main number. Sometimes, the country code gets bunched up with the phone number. But just do a few corrections and you can save the contact to your address book.

BCR is definitely not perfect and it probably requires some updates to increase its accuracy. Nevertheless, it is a time-saving tool for those who regularly meet new clients or acquaintances in their line of work.

Get it at the iTunes Store at an introductory price of US$5.99.

The Micro Four Thirds (MFT) system, which eliminates the pentaprism and reflex mirror but retains the use of interchangeable lens, is steadily making inroads within the photography community. MFT cameras, like the Olympus PEN E-P1 and the Panasonic GF1, are selling like hotcakes in many countries.

However, another system that can possibly rival the MFT has arrived.

Ricoh has decided that changing lenses still creates too many opportunities for dust and dirt to become friends with the image sensors. So, it has decided to come up with the GXR system that consists of a body and camera units. Each camera unit comprises the lens, the image sensor and the image processor. So, you attach the camera unit to the body via a slide-in mount system.

Ricoh claims that the GXR is the smallest and lightest digital camera with the ability to change lens (and image sensor).

Thus, you are not merely changing lenses but changing the image sensor as well. While this means dust or dirt specks on your photos will be a thing of the past, I wonder if such an arrangement makes any practical sense.

I love Ricoh’s digital compact cameras, like its GX200. But Ricoh’s pricing has always been on the high side. With an image sensor tied to a lens, I reckon each camera unit is going to cost substantially more. And if you drop a camera unit, you not only lose your lens, but your image sensor and image processor as well.

Conversely, since the GXR body itself already has features such as a built-in flash, hot shoe with accessory port to mount an optional electronic viewfinder and even Auto-Focus assist, there is no need to buy a new body to get an image sensor upgrade. New camera units will probably have new image sensors with a bigger megapixel count. Thus, there is no need to continuously upgrade the bodies.

Ultimately, only time (and the price) will tell if the GXR can beat the MFT.

Tags: GXR, Micro Four Thirds, Ricoh

Finally, smartphones based on the Google-backed Android operating system are starting to come of age. The OS will soon come in its second major iteration, and will power smartphones from the likes of Motorola, HTC and Samsung.

What this means is consumers can start choosing from a plethora of quality devices (as opposed to the one and only iPhone) that run on a modern and snappy mobile OS that provides an almost desktop-like Internet browsing experience, an amply-stocked application store that can help extend the abilities of their devices, and simple contacts integration with Facebook and Google accounts.

Death to the mediocre smartphone, I say.

Sony Ericcson is the latest to join the Android fold with its announcement of the XPERIA X10.

The impressive-looking hardware (a 3.5G smartphone with 4-inch touchscreen and 8.1-megapixel camera) is accompanied by a slick pair of custom applications, Timescape and Mediascape, which provide much more refined experiences with media playback and communicating with contacts.

Have a look at what the XPERIA X10 might be capable of when it gets on shelves in the first quarter of 2010:

Over in the United States, Motorola’s new Droid smartphone (it could possibly be called the Milestone if it arrives here) is getting lots of airtime for being a possible iPhone-killer with its well-specced hardware – a fast mobile processor that’s coupled with a 3.7-inch touchscreen and a 5-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash:

Smartphones won’t be the only devices that will get loaded with Android. Netbooks will soon be graced by the ‘droid, too:

Tags: Apple, Google, iPhone, Mobile, Smartphone