By David Ponce

Americans are getting used to the idea of full body scanners. Or maybe not. Either way, the BodyMetrics 3D scanner has much tamer goals than to sniff out your underwear explosives. Step into one and 8 PrimeSense 3D sensors will map your body’s shape and measurements, quickly and accurately creating 100 data points. Once your shape has been determined, the retail store will be better able to offer you clothing that complements your specific shape. Better yet, you’ll be able to store your profile online for later access when shopping from home. No more guesswork, or wishful thinking.

There’s only one BodyMetrics scanner at the moment. It’s at New Look, a global clothing retailer, at their newest location in the Westfield Stratford shopping complex. There is a chance you’ll be seeing more of these if the companies are successful in convincing other stores to go for them.

[ Press Release ] VIA [ UberGizmo ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Of all the PC peripherals that gobble up your precious desk space, the flatbed scanner has to be the worst offender. If there happens to be one on your desk right now, I’m sure it’s buried under a mountain of papers and other crap that has to be cleared off on the rare occasion you actually need to scan something. So LG has done a real solid for anyone who hates desktop clutter. Their new LSM-100 Smart Scan mouse has a scanning head built into it, so it just takes a couple of passes back and forth whenever you have a document to scan.

It’s obviously not as easy as just slapping a page on a scanner bed and hitting go, but I’m assuming it comes with the necessary software to automatically stitch several passes of a scanned document together for you. It’s also got some OCR capabilities, which is a must have for any scanner, and the ability to spit out documents to a wide variety of formats. The $150 price tag (available at the end of August in Europe and internationally a little later) might not appeal to everybody though. Particularly since I’m going to assume this mouse has some extra bulk and heft to it, which can’t be fun to push around all day.

[ Gizmag - LG’s LSM-100 mouse that doubles as a scanner set for release ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Converting a CD to MP3 files is pretty much a one-step process these days. (Unless you’re really anal about how the tracks are ripped and compressed.) But converting a printed book into an eBook to enjoy on your eReader is far more involved. And while Plustek’s new OpticBook 3800 scanner doesn’t make it as easy as inserting a book and hitting go, it does provide some key advantages if scanning printed pages is a priority for you.

The leading edge of the scanning bed has an extremely thin bezel which facilitates scanning the pages of a book as close to the inner spine as possible. While the company’s ‘SEE’ or ‘Shadow Elimination Element’ technology removes the shadow and distorted text that usually appear close to the spine. The scanner’s lid also features a very generous layer of foam padding which helps flatten books or pages against the scanner bed, further reducing curved distortions on the scanned page. Unfortunately turning pages and processing each scanned image with the included collection of OCR software is left to you. Of course a machine that will do all of that for you does exist, for a mere $250,000. While Plustek’s alternative is just $300.

[ Plustek OpticBook 3800 ] VIA [ Wired Gadget Lab ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Your mouse; It points, it clicks. Don’t you sometimes wish that it could do so much more than that? What if it could scan documents? That could be useful, right? I’m sure there’s someone out there that gets excited at the prospect of waving their mouse over a sheet of paper in order to reproduce it digitally on their computer.

I could see this being useful for oversized documents that won’t fit on a normal scanner, but that’s really about it. Honestly, with a resolution of only 300dpi, I can’t say I’d be all that excited to use it. Maybe if they could increase that to at least 600 by the time they bring this thing to market, LG might be able to sell a few units.

[ LG ] VIA [ Engadget ]

By Andrew Liszewski

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Fujitsu’s PFU subsidiary, their PFU Imaging Solutions Europe Limited division has commissioned a couple of special edition versions of the company’s ScanSnap S1500 and S1300 scanners. The units will be available in a limited run since they’re decorated by hand with a high-quality Urushi lacquer coating and gold powder embellishments including an eagle and the ScanSnap logo. There’s no doubt the results look fantastic, particularly when compared to the standard gray or black plastic housing of most scanners. So $2,200 for the S1300 and $3,200 for the S1500 almost seems like a bargain when you consider you’ll have the best looking scanner in the office.

[ PR - Special Design Edition: Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 and S1300 ] VIA [ Boing Boing & David ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Most scanners that boast the ability to remove dust, scratches and other damage on a photo just include a few bundled software applications like Photohshop Elements for dealing with the problem, but the Epson Perfection V750-M Pro scanner includes the Digital ICE hardware and software technologies to correct image defects all within the scanner. When dealing with film negatives an infrared sensor is used in multiple passes to map out and remove dust and scratches on the surface of the film, while prints are handled slightly differently using two lamps at different angles to map out differences in shadows which reveal and allow defects like tears, folds and creases to be repaired.

The V-750M Pro is also able to scan to a maximum resolution of 6400dpi, and will automatically select from one of two different lenses depending on your desired scan resolution for optimal results. Of course with a price tag of $849.99 it’s targeted towards digital imaging professionals instead of regular home use, but if you’ve got a shoebox full of ill-kept photos to process, it could make your life a heck of a lot easier.

[ Epson Perfection V750-M Pro Scanner ] VIA [ Luxury Housing Trends ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Besides the included OCR/TTS (text-to-speech) software and the company’s patented ‘SEE Technology’ which uses a curved lamp to reduce text distortion along the spine of a thick book, I don’t really see what sets this Plustek scanner apart from the cheaper versions you can find at most electronic stores. But I guess in this case the whole is greater than the sum of its parts because the Plustek V100 BookReader makes converting a page of text into an MP3 audio file as easy as clicking a single button.

The Plustek V100 can also do standard scanner stuff like converting a document into editable text or spitting out an email-friendly PDF file, but it’s the text-to-speech functionality that seems to be its real claim to fame. The V100′s price tag comes in at around $700, but since it doesn’t feature an auto page-turning mechanism, the real price is the amount of time you’ll have to spend manually flipping pages if you intend to convert an entire novel into an audiobook.

[ Plustek V100 BookReader ] VIA [ Cool Hunting ]

By Andrew Liszewski

For the most part there’s very little that distinguishes the hundreds of different digital photo frames on the market. But the Memoir from Skyla (the new consumer electronics division of LiteOn IT) will definitely stand out in the crowd since it features a built-in photo scanner that makes it easy for anyone to convert an old print into a digital photo. Because of the size of the frame the scanner is limited to handling 4×6 prints or smaller, but the 1GB of internal memory should be enough to store about 200 4×6 photos scanned at 600 dpi..

The Memoir also features pretty much everything else you’d expect in a ‘modern’ digital photo frame including an 800×600 resolution LCD, two USB ports for connecting flash drives or syncing the frame to your PC and support for MP3s, MPEGs and other image files. However I don’t see a mention of slots for compact flash or secure digital cards, but I’m going to assume those are included as well. The Memoir should be available in late December and will have an MSRP of $219.99.

[ Gearlog - LiteOn IT Introduces Skyla's Memoir Scanning Digital Photo Frame ]

By Andrew Liszewski

While I am the type of person who keeps track of their receipts and files them away in an organized accordion folder, I draw the line at scanning them into my PC. But I think my excuse of it being ‘too much work’ is losing ground. The NeatDesk from NeatReceipts is another scanner designed to make the whole process of creating digital copies of your receipts a lot easier thanks to software that can automatically recognize and record the dates and dollar amounts.

And while most receipt or business card scanners are designed as compact dedicated units, the NeatDesk can also accommodate regular 8.5×11 documents and can actually scan both sides in a single pass. The unit features dedicated slots for different sized documents (full pages vs. business cards) and there’s an easy to use PDF button on the front that will automatically scan and convert any document directly into a PDF file. With a supposed price tag of around $500 it’s a far cry from the cheapo $80 scanners available at most electronic stores these days, so I guess the real value must lie in the included software.

[ NeatReceipts ] VIA [ Ubergizmo ]