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Telephoto
Use a mobile phone's camera to read telephone numbers | |
To take a phone number from a billboard or business card, simply photograph it. OCR software on the phone searches for the phone number and gives you the option to call it immediately or store it.
And capture criminals
http://www.halfbake...ed_20Flash_20Moment
[theircompetitor, Nov 11 2004]
Put a VisCode on the billboard?
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/VisCode
The OCR on a VisCode would be clear as a bell. (Or a Bell, inc.?) [not_only_but_also, Nov 15 2004]
Bar Codes
http://www.gizmodo....ants-service-026198
Well, they've done it, D. [contracts, Nov 23 2004]
baked, by LG
http://www.engadget...y/1234000893021931/
a phone with OCR (and apparently not the first) [neilp, Nov 30 2004]
Short name, e.g., Bob's Coffee
Destination URL.
E.g., http://www.coffee.com/
Description (displayed with the short name and URL.)
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That's almost sensible and logical. |
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That, and a few more features like it
might convince me to get a camera
phone. [+] |
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(wish it had a more informative title,
though) |
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[david_scothern] this is a fine, fine idea,
and entirely bakeable. General ocr
would be handy to either email or SMS
content. |
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[drone employee of major telecoms corp dutifully takes note] [+] |
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excellent. of course the police will be catching your registration plate on their mobiles pretty much after that. I said that like it was a bad thing! |
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I have moral objections to your cameraphone. I'm going to have to confiscate it, and smash it. (Oh, and a tenuous [+] for the idea - - that would have to be some *damn* dynamic OCR software. Modern OCR engines still have difficulty with output even from scanners with a clear, flat image, scanned slowly, head-on, and under bright light.) |
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[contracts] there's no reason why the OCR s/w need actually be on the device - it could send the picture away to an OCR webservice and use the response.
In fact.. if it could do this it might be useful for those mapping/ 'where the hell am I ' sites. |
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You're completely right, [neilp], except for the completely wrong part. What software would they use? There isn't OCR available that is good enough. (Regardless, I bunned the idea, btw . . . it remains feasible. Perhaps if the images are sent to India, translated into something that resembles numerals.) |
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Maybe the phone number could be stored in one (or two) of my VisCodes? (See link) |
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The OCR on a VisCode would be much clearer than text/digits. |
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Hmmm... I use the camera in my PDA/phone to photograph business cards, so I can call them up as needed, from an alphabetic listing. Beats carrying hundreds of them around, or transposing them into the address book. |
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Wow! See the link. [David], they've got your oven tapped. |
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it seems this is now baked (see link). |
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