You
may recall, back at CES, we got our hands on LG's LSM-100 mouse scanner and were able to try it out for ourselves.
Well it appears that you may have that same opportunity soon. The company has
announced that it will be "opening a new era for scanners" at IFA in
a few days with its mouse that boasts a built-in scanner. Simply by holding the
Smart Scan button, you'll be able to save or drag and drop scanned images as
large as A3 paper size in a variety of formats -- PNG, JPEG, TIFF, and PDF,
just to name a few -- by swiping the mouse over it. If that wasn't enough to
entice you, the peripheral also features Optical Character Recognition that
converts text from said images into an editable Word document. Perhaps lost in
all this is the fully functioning mouse bit... which you'll probably need as well. No word yet on pricing
or availability, but hopefully soon, you'll have room on your desk for one of these.
Update: Apparently this bad boy is already available the UK for £89.98 (around $148), via the coverage link below. Also, we added a promo video from the folks at LG showing the peripheral in action -- which you can check out after the break.
We
just made our way to the LG booth here at the Consumer
Electronics Show and found this multifaceted gizmo that the company is
dubbing the Scanner Mouse. It does exactly what you think -- works as a mouse
and scanner. You might recall something similar from back in the day, but LG is looking to commercialize the idea. The bottom
of the rodent has a clear (glass or plastic sheet, we're not sure) packed with
five LEDs for the camera to see the image being reflected off of the mirror
inside. To kickstart the scanning process on a Widows or Mac machine, you
simply press the scan button and huzzah -- the software will activate and
display the area the scanner is hovering over. Thanks to the dual lasers found
on the top and bottom of the underside, you can actually rotate the mouse in
any direction and it'll pick up whatever it's looking at -- it'll even translate
copy on a page into editable text within a document editor. It also functions
as a proper mouse (duh!), featuring a scroll wheel as well as left, right and
back buttons. The software, in case you were wondering, couldn't be any simpler
to use. Formats such as JPEG, TIFF, PDF and PNG are exportable to your favorite
social networks, and you've got basic editing functions to make your scans just
right. Head on past the break to see an in-action demo.
