HP CapShare Scanner

This new "information appliance" from Hewlett-Packard is a portable handheld scanner used to capture text and images from printed material, and then share them with associates and friends. Although not a Windows CE device, it interfaces with Windows CE Handheld and Palm-size PCs.

Let's say you're reading an article and find a particularly interesting quote that you want to send to an associate. You could type it into an e-mail message, but the quote's a little long. Besides, there's an interesting graph with the quote. This is where CapShare comes in handy.

Lay the article down flat and place CapShare at the top of the page. Then press the "Capture" button, drag CapShare over the page and release the button (see bottom right illustration). CapShare captures a graphical image of the page (text and photos). CapShare is about 1/2 the width of a standard piece of paper, so if you want to capture the whole page, you drag CapShare down one side of the page, slide it over at the bottom, and slide it back up -- all without lifting CapShare off the page. It took a little time getting used to this scan pattern, and remembering not to lift CapShare off the page. But once I did, it was very easy to use.

After capturing the image, you can send it to a desktop PC via a connectivity cable that comes with CapShare. You can also use a built-in infrared port to "squirt" the image to any device equipped with an IrDA infrared port. This includes PC Companions or desktops with infrared ports. You can even send the image to an IrDA-equipped printer and print out a hard copy of the image. Once the image is on your desktop PC or PC Companion, you can attach it to an e-mail and send it to an associate.

A closer look at CapShare

The HP CapShare 910 is very easy to use. Press one button and drag the device over the page to capture the image. The captured image is displayed on CapShare's small LCD screen. A magnify button will let you increase or decrease the size of the image. An orientation button lets you change the image from horizontal to vertical. And the delete button lets you erase the image. CapShare also has buttons to access help screens and the built-in "toolkit." The toolkit lets you configure the page size of the image and the language used in CapShare's menu options (English, French, German, Spanish, and Dutch.

You can capture documents, newspaper columns, business cards, receipts and more. CapShare's 4 MB of internal memory lets you capture up to 50 pages of letter-size documents. Its two rechargeable AA NiMH batteries power the CapShare for up to 100 letter-size captures and two full downloads of the internal memory.