Legal Research

Scan a 200 Page Book in 1 Minute!

By Steven Matthews

This is very cool and very scary! A professor at the University of Tokyo, Masatoshi Ishikawa, is developing a rapid book scanner that will scan a 200 page book in about one minute.

Using a “Super Vision Chip” that will scan the flipping pages faster than the human eye can process, its camera operates at 500 frames per second. Check out the embedded video below:

While it’s unclear exactly how the technology will account for skipped pages, or if it would destroy archival quality materials, this is indeed the future of book digitization – and all the positives & negatives that come with it.

Will we be able to digitally preserve some fantastic books and collections? Yes.  Will this type of technology get mass produced and cause copyright issues for wholesale copying of books? Yes.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on March 18, 2010 (boomark / email).