Scanning With My Smartphone? Sign Me Up! Beth Snyder June 3, 2012 The scanner at my house gets quite a workout, as I am a huge fan of scanning to save paper and also storage space for paper. Where I run into a problem is when I’m nowhere near my scanner or anyone else’s, as often happens primarily at work. Sure, I can take a picture of whatever it is, but then I have to deal with the obvious issues of light, steadiness, angle, etc. Scanbox is addressing those problems, and quite nicely at that. OK, so it’s not really scanning, but whatever. Scanbox is currently a Kickstarter project, but since they are almost $70,000 over their goal with more than 30 days left to go, I’d say it’s pretty much a done deal. The concept is almost stupidly simple, and probably many of us have made something similar on more than one occasion…but not with all the features Scanbox promises. What you get is a box with a small hole in the top (where you position your phone’s camera) that measures 12.2 x 12.2 x 9.05-inches. It acts sort of like a tripod, offering you steadiness so your picture doesn’t come out blurry. The box itself is held together with neodymium magnets, and will fold down to the size of a standard manila folder for easy portability. It’s been optimized for iPhone and iPod Touch, but it will work with any smartphone that has a rear-facing camera. The standard option (which is a $15.00 US pledge) gives you just the box, but you can opt for the Scanbox Plus option ($25.00 US) which also includes LED lights to ensure picture quality even when the ambient light is not helpful. You will have to supply your own 9v battery, though. I’d opt for the Plus, since I tend to have horrific luck with my camera flash when taking pictures. And if you don’t then essentially all you’re buying is a tripod. As I said, the funding is far more than reached, but you still have time to opt in over at Kickstarter if you’re interested. It even comes in six different colours to please pretty much everyone, if aesthetics are a concern for you. Choose from red, green, orange, blue, pink or black. Source: Geek.com Share This With The World!
