Loaded with an OLED display and an incredible 64MB of storage (further expandable via MicroSD), you simply run the pen (lengthwise) over text and colour images to capture them at 600dpi. But to simplify matters even more, you can either unload images to a PC through USB, or you can just transfer shots to whatever device you’d like over Bluetooth.

According to DVICE, the quality was surprisingly good in testing, though for $US369, it had better be. [PlanOn via DVICE]

And seriously, why would you? For $200 you can grab a proper flatbed Canon scanner for less than that, or a multifunction printer for just a little bit more. Sure, the Latestbuy model works with both Mac and PCs, scans up to 3600 x 2400 (600 DPI) and doubles as a webcam – but it’s pretty ugly in its design and pricey for what it does. And if you’re really buying a scanner because it can double as a webcam, you should probably sit back and reconsider your technology choices…

[Latestbuy]

Spyuge, the amateur photographer responsible for this DIY gem, says that he took a 1200 dpi Epson GT-S620 scanner, and an old Canon FD 50mm lens, fusing the two together to produce this. He said he chose that particular scanner because it has a CCD sensor, uses a camera-like lens of its own and uses LED lighting. In some of the shots, there’s obviously noticeable noise even at 800 or 1024 res, but all things considered, these photos are more than respectable.

Bouncing Red Ball also has a close-up zoom to show what kind of detail the camera setup can produce (SPOILER: it’s not shabby at all). For the few brave ones out there, you can also check out a full-resolution image for yourself. This is not for the faint of heart. In case you don’t want to do the (relatively basic) math, a 130-megapixel image calculates out to roughly a 13,000×10,000 resolution image.

Meanwhile the rest of us can appreciate some of the shots found in Spyuge’s Flickr stream. [via Bouncing Red Ball via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Welcome to the future, where everyone is dumb and reality has surpassed fiction once again. This time, maximum levels of idiocy have been reached with the $US100 ezRead, a scanner that connects to your television. This is what it does:

Cooler than books on tape and way more fun than subtitles, the ezRead transforms your reading material into televised material.

What? Cooler than books on tape? More fun than movies with subtitles? This is surreal. That alone is enough to smack whoever wrote this sales pitch.

Of course, people with serious sight problems can connect this to a huge TV to read books and drugs prescriptions—like they say at the end of their product description. But how many of this limited set people have a huge TV? And would they be willing to use this instead of just grabbing a large, perhaps cheaper magnifying glass?

I’m afraid the ezRead is just one of those devices who overuse technology to cater to an extremely limited market that already have their needs covered with low-tech solutions. But everyone’s getting old, including the technologically inclined, so there may be a market for this. [Scientific Online via Red Ferret]

I like this thing. It’s probably because of the 2001: Space Odyssey retro look. Or the fact that this $US400 Automatic Document Feeder for PC and Mac takes the hassle out of scanning and cropping documents by having slots for each kind of most common and annoying paper bits—namely business cards, receipts, and invoices.

Or maybe it’s just that the procrastinator in me loves the idea of putting a whole lot of old receipts, business cards, and invoices all at once, and have the NeatDesk handle everything, creating address books, making searchable PDFs, and adding information to Quicken, Excel, or Quickbooks. Uncrate says that the automatic organisation actually works “surprisingly well” and now I would like an excuse to try it.

But then again, I think I will stick to my previous method. It works great. [Uncrate]

At the moment, Google claims that the service works best with “products like electronics, books, movies or video games,” but they are working to bring more products on board. Hopefully the iPhone will be able to take advantage of this service sometime in the near future. [Google via MobileCrunch]

Apparently the trials at 6 airports have gone so well that the TSA would like to have all passengers “go through the whole-body imager instead of the walk-through metal detector.” In other words, everyone who gets on a plane will be seen quasi-naked.

The TSA is quick to remind the public that the technician is “off-site” and unable to associate your grey naked body with your real, grey naked body.

Swapping all metal detectors to whole body scanners should make that 100ml liquid rule a thing of the past, but with each scanner running $US100,000 to $US170,000 apiece, the upgrade won’t exactly be free. And really, I think the TSA should be paying me if they expect to see my naked behind. At least then I’d know the money was worth it. [NYT and Budget Travel and Getty Images]

This is just begging for a duet with this guy and his Tesla coil. [YouTube via BBG]

The booths from China, obviously, were our favourites. [Toy Fair 2009]

“mofiria” uses a unique method where a CMOS sensor diagonally captures scattered light inside the finger veins, making a plane layout possible. As a result, a small and more flexible design can be realised in building this technology into mobile devices.

The vein pattern is extracted from the captured finger vein image, and data from the pattern is compressed into the size of one-tenth to store in memory, which makes it possible for the data to be stored on a mobile device. Sony’s unique algorithm achieves fast and easy operation. The vein pattern is quickly and accurately extracted from the captured finger vein image without a fixed finger position, as the position of a placed finger is automatically and simultaneously corrected. As a result, the authentication accuracy is less than 0.1% for the FRR (False Rejection Rate), less than 0.0001% for the FAR (False Acceptance Rate), and processing time for identification takes only about 0.015 sec*1 using a personal computer CPU and about 0.25 sec*2 when using a mobile phone CPU.

Sony plans to promote the “mofiria” technology for use in mobile devices, gateway security systems and solution services. Sony will aim for commercialising this technology within the 2009 fiscal year.

I don’t know about you, but that crazy looking finger in the illustration makes this technology sort of frightening to me. [Sony and Slashphone]