TECHNOLOGY FOR CHANGE

Scanning Pen Shows Definitions Just Aren`t Enough Anymore

Kevin Fogarty | Date: 01-08-10 | Comments

Wizcom "pen" reads, translates, defines, but also fails in the face of better information services.

The rush of tablets, smartphones, netbooks, e-books and other mighty-mites due to flood out of the Consumer Electronics Show�and possibly from an Apple pay-attention-to-me event in San Francisco as well�this month will do more than put way more power in a way cooler package in your hand during 2010.

They�ll also make casual, constant use of data-access devices far more common, increasing the need for easily portable devices that can blast through the bottlenecks we all run into daily by moving data from the physical world to the virtual.

Detailed handouts from a conference? Handwritten notes from an important meeting? Spec sheets, brochures, directions�anything people hand you on paper thinking you�ll have time to review it later are actually burdening you with data on a medium that�s heavy to carry, uses data storage space inefficiently and is difficult to search without a separate, manual process.

Wizcom Technologies has one solution: an ultraportable scanner designed to let users scan printed or written text, most of which can be converted into digital text�rather than images of text as in a PDF�to be searched or edited later.

Portable scanners and copiers are nothing new. But even the comparatively svelte versions are chunky compared with Wizcom�s scanning pen. They can also scan more than a couple of lines at a time.

But they can�t (easily) come along with you to conferences so you can scan in just the portions of the session materials you want to keep, let you (slowly with a tiny virtual keyboard and a stylus) enter text on the unit itself, store hundreds of pages of text in an admittedly gargantuan penlike form factor, or bring dictionaries and translators along to clue you in on specific meanings, whether they be in Chinese or an unfamiliar tech dialect.

Unfortunately, great as the potential is in the various iteration of Wizcom�s incredibly flexible device, neither the device nor the implementation is quite flexible enough�at least for a professional audience.

Products such as Wizcom's Quicktionary 2 Multi�which can translate printed text on the fly from 24 languages�could be valuable to globetrotters who don�t speak the language of every country they visit. Scan in one line at a time from the menu in that quaint place in the village in the Caucuses that has just a bit too much local color, and you�ll be able to tell if you�re ordering bread and cheese or a selection of local specialties made from parts even the goat didn�t know it had.

On the other hand, for between $170 and $280, depending on the model, the scanners don�t do as much as you�d think.

They come with a limited range of dictionaries, for one thing. The primary one is a basic American Heritage dictionary, along with a list of generic-sounding computer, science, geography, abbreviation and other special-purpose collections.

All the dictionaries come preloaded, so you have to pick the ones you think you�ll need and then stick with them or buy another pen.

That works for the educational market that makes up 45 to 50 percent of the company�s sales, according to Eitam Shacham, vice president in charge of the Israeli company�s U.S. operations.

Wizcom has sold versions of its Readingpen�which is designed to help K-12 students read more quickly by pronouncing and defining problematic words as they move through the text�in more than 60 percent of U.S. school districts, Shacham said.

The pens were not a big hit with the local K-12 students who could be roped into cooperating, despite an otherwise compulsive drive to play with shiny new electronics. The readers scanned too little text at a time, took too long to provide definitions and didn�t provide enough additional information to help those who had already crested the barrier between learning to read and reading to learn.

In the business world, knowledge workers can be relied upon (usually) to know most of the words they encounter from day to day without the need for constant definition and pronunciation guides. What they do need is a quick reference to the jargon and special vocabularies in law, various technical subspecialties, finance, business, medicine and other functional areas in which language is used as much to put off the uninitiated as it is to communicate complex topics quickly.

Wizcom will add features during the first half of 2010 that will open the dictionary function more fully, allowing customers to customize the dictionaries that are already installed and, eventually, offering special-purpose dictionaries for download so a customer slogging through text filled with jargon could, theoretically, download the appropriate dictionary and get help from Readingpen on the two-dollar words.

That level of customization requires partnerships with dictionary providers and hardware redesigns that would allow flash updates and the addition of new content, which the pens can�t do now.

Unfortunately, by the time Wizcom gets around to adding those functions, it�s likely iSlates and GooglePhones and Android Netbooks�not to mention iPhones and BlackBerrys and whatnot�will be providing the richer content-analysis, augmented-reality reading services.

That leaves only the portal function for devices like Wizcom�s�conversion of text on paper to text onscreen where data connections can add data or value or just tinny streaming sound and low-res images.

Wizcom�s scanning pens are the most convenient and portable I�ve tried, and would be a reasonable option if I needed to translate a lot of printed text to English, though I�d try very hard to get it in digital format so I could use an online service to translate it instead.

If I were looking for a way to convert printed text to electronic in order to have my way with it, however, I�d probably look for something that converts more than one line at a time.