You can simply browse a book that does not seem the best way to scan, but a group of Japanese researchers at the University of Tokyo created super fast scanner new software that allows hundreds of pages to be scanned in minutes.

Scan paper is usually a tedious process in which each page has to be inserted into a flatbed scanner, but a team led by Professor Masatoshi Ishikawa uses a high speed camera that takes 500 pictures per second to scan pages as they are passed .

Normal scanners can only scan the information to be placed directly before them on the page. Developing the new scanner has no problem with the fact that pages are usually deformed in some way to pass.

“Take a picture of the way, then calculates the form and use these estimates to record scanning,” Ishikawa said, explaining the system used to reconstruct the original page.

“As you can record while understand the underlying form is very easy to make pages that are being scanned and saved as a normal flat copy,” he added.

The current system can scan an average of 200-250 pages book in just over 60 seconds using a basic computer equipment available for sale.

Although it now requires additional time to process the scanned images, the researchers hope that with time the technology is faster and much smaller.

“In the more distant future, when it is possible to put all this on a chip and then put in an IPAD or iPod, you could simply scan using that chip. At that point, it will be possible to scan something quickly to record it and read it later” Ishikawa told Reuters.

To scan books with an iPhone might be a bit far, but Ishikawa said that a commercial version of the scanning system based on a computer may be available in two or three years.

Although technology has the potential to take paper books into the digital age, it remains to be seen how publishers will react to the fact that people can scan their books simply turning the pages.

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