ScanR Announces Integration with Acrobat.com to Enable Mobile Capabilities

scanR Inc. announced that it is working with Adobe to deliver a new mobile application for select BlackBerry smart phones and the iPhone 3GS to enable any time, anywhere access to Acrobat.com. The mobile application enhances the Acrobat.com suite of online services by letting users view and share files in their accounts by simply using their smart phones. scanR, the leading online service that enables camera phones to scan, print and fax, will provide the first mobile access point for Acrobat.com. With scanR providing a tightly-integrated mobile extension to Acrobat.com, the combined offering gives users unparalleled functionality and convenience with a mobile business center in the palm of their hands.

The new Acrobat.com mobile application will allow people to use their BlackBerry smart phones or iPhone 3GS to:

Capture physical documents, forms, notes and whiteboards digitally o   Easily snap a picture of a physical document or whiteboard. o   Pictures are converted automatically to genuine, searchable PDF files, stored and accessible on Acrobat.com. Share files o   Easily share files with other people from a smart phone by sending a link to the shared file on Acrobat.com. Stay organized o   Access and manage files stored on Acrobat.com from a smart phone, regardless of file size. Print on-the-go o   Send a document stored on Acrobat.com from a smart phone to a nearby fax machine for printing. Mobile fax

o   Fax documents to over 200 countries directly from a smart phone.

"Adobe understands the importance of delivering a compelling mobile experience, and we are excited about our work with scanR to enable mobile users to access Acrobat.com from their smart phones," said Rick Treitman, director of product management for Acrobat.com. "In addition, we recognize the importance of transforming paper based information into digital form, and scanR represents an exciting step forward in making it easy for anyone to capture and share information through a device that is always in your pocket." Acrobat.com mobile runs on select smart phones, including BlackBerry Curve 8900, Tour, Storm, Storm 2, Bold 9700, and Apple iPhone 3GS.

"The US smart phone market is now shipping scanR-ready devices in volume from leading handset OEM's like RIM and Apple," said Rudy Ruano, Chief Executive Officer of scanR. "Mobile extensions have become a critical component of any cloud based service, and we are proud to be a part of this complete business solution."

Acrobat.com has over 6 million users and is gaining 100,000 new users every week. scanR's award winning service has been downloaded over 2 million times in over 220 countries.

BlackBerry on scanR

Capture meeting notes and whiteboards with your BlackBerry

Now anyone with a BlackBerry Curve or Pearl can quickly capture notes and whiteboards in seconds.  scanR chose BlackBerry to showcase scanR Mobile v2, its new and innovative mobile application design, which makes it even easier to capture information on the run.  scanR Mobile for BlackBerry has many improvements including accessing the camera directly, enabling sharing from the address book, allowing quick access to view scans on the scanR website, and incorporating a simple step by step tutorial for first time users.  These new capabilities were designed to reduce the time needed to capture and share new scans, and to help people learn to use scanR.  Now people can put their Blackberry smartphones to work scanning, copying and faxing!

Take a look at some of the main screens in scanR Mobile for BlackBerry.

Welcome

Main menu

Camera

Result on mobile website

Until last year, Blackberry smartphones were not available with cameras.  But a lot has changed in the last 12 months, which illustrates just how quickly and profoundly the mobile market shifts.  The biggest selling Blackberry smartphones are the Curve and the Pearl models, both of which now offer up to 2 megapixel cameras.  It was a big day for scanR when these new models were announced.  They signaled the complete acceptance of cameras across all phone segments, from the low-end all the way up to business devices.  As with the iPhone, we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of even better cameras on Blackberry smartphones.  Better cameras enable the full suite of scanR services, allowing people to scan business cards, office documents, magazines and books. For now, your BlackBerry Curve or Pearl is perfectly suited to capture your notes and whiteboards on the go.

Get scanR Mobile for Blackberry today by browsing to m.scanR.com on your phone or www.scanR.com on your computer.

Share paper documents and notes online

Now you can copy your documents and whiteboards using your camera phone, then share them online with your friends and co-workers. Many people already use scanR to quickly copy and distribute handwritten notes without rewriting them in email.  Until now scanR only sent PDF files.  This made it more difficult to collaborate with your team.  With online sharing, scanR lets you invite people to view the scanned image online in addition to downloading it as a PDF, text file or image. 

Shared scans can be viewed on computers or mobile phones.  For people who need to access their information while away from their computer or don't have regular access to computers, scanR can send invitations to view scans in SMS text messages.  This enables people you invite to view your documents on their phone, just by clicking a link in the message from scanR.  On phones, the link will open the scan on on the scanR mobile webiste.  Of course, you can invite and view shared scans on computers as well. 

Here's an overview of online sharing from the scanR mobile website. From the home page, find the scan you want to share.  Any you shared previously will display "Shared" and any shared with you with display the owners name.  Click the image to view the details.

From the detailed view, you can download the image to your phone or share it with someone.  Click the Share link to share this page.

Here you can enter an email address or a mobile phone number.  scanR will send invitations in email or as an SMS text message nearly anywhere in the world. 

Once the person you invited views the scan, you will see a their name appear in your list of shared scans.  Clicking a name on this list will show all scans shared between you and them.

Sharing is available on your phone at m.scanR.com and on your computer at www.scanR.com.

scanR wins MCPC award

scanR won the 2008 MCPC Mobile Consumer Award!

The MCPC (Mobile Computing Promotion Consortium) is a Japanese industry group consisting of 163 corporations, including  mobile operators, hardware manufacturers, software developers, and systems integrators. It is a big honor of a US based company like scanR to win this prize.

According to the MCPC, scanR won the prize because of its advanced technology that enables its scan, copy and fax service for mobile phones, and its applicability to a  broad range of business users and consumers.

Check out some of the scanR presentation and demonstration at the MCPC award banquet.

scanR Pro

scanR Pro: Unlimited Uploads and No Ads

Starting today, scanR will offer scanR Pro, a premium version of its award-winning service, that permits unlimited uploads and removes all advertising from its processed images.  People can choose from two plans: unlimited use for $2.99 monthly or $29.90 annually, or 40 uploads for $9.99.

scanR also offers scanR Trial, a free service with all of the features of scanR Pro, but limited to 5 uploads per month and with a scanR logo on processed images.  Both scanR services allow unlimited storage, online sharing, PDF creation, worldwide fax and synchronization with Facebook, salesforce.com and Plaxo.

Color documents

Color Document Scanning

scanR supports document scanning in full color! Before, all document pages sent to scanR were converted into black and white. Now, if you send photos of  magazines, newspapers, books, or other color pages to scanR, it will return high-quality digital copies in full-color.  You still get all of the benefits of scanR image processing, including cropping, rotation, focus enhancement, PDF creation, and conversion into text.

scanR 

Photo

scanR -- primetime and front page news in Japan

The scanR launch with au/KDDI went amazingly well. The media really likes scanR and gave us fantastic coverage.  There were quite a few articles, but two of the best were a front page article and a primetime TV news show.

scanR made the front page of the Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun, a leading business newspaper.

Here's an excerpt translated in English:

"Digitalization by mobile phones - for name cards and documents by U.S. ScanR. U.S. ScanR, a network related service provider, started a service that enables mobile phones to take and convert photo data of name cards, printed documents, noted whiteboards, into digital documents and can also perform data management."

scanR was featured on World Business Satellite, a top-rated news program from Tokyo TV.

They demonstrated scanR with Japanese fax, whiteboards and business card scanning.  See the full broadcast (requires RealPlayer).

scanR available on au by KDDI in Japan

KDDI just announced that scanR will be part of its new mobile service, Business EZ. This new service for all au subscribers is a portal for productivity services, including calendars, information and now, scanR. It is the place to go for the latest tools to help people stay productive.  scanR is also part of the consumer content program and is available on the au EZweb portal.  For scanR, this marks the first major partnership announcement outside of the United States. 

As a US-based company, why did we partner with KDDI in Japan now? 

Japan leads the world in camera phone adoption
There are 100 million mobile subscribers in Japan and nearly all of them have camera phones.  These aren’t just toy cameras, the majority are 2 megapixels or higher and many include anti-shake compensation and high quality lenses.  As the first market in the world to achieve mass market penetration of digital camera-quality phones, Japan is an ideal place for scanR.

KDDI is a world leader in mobile services
The mobile phone brand for KDDI is “au”.  It is the fastest growing mobile service in Japan, adding 3 million subscribers in the last year.  This achievement is notable as the market is fully penetrated, so they are taking customers from the other mobile carriers.  To do this, KDDI differentiated from NTT DoCoMo with advanced phone capabilities and innovative mobile services.  As a result, over 10 million KDDI subscribers have 2 megapixel or better camera phones. 

KDDI is remarkable in its ability to introduce new services.  For example, recently KDDI introduced a mobile storage service for photos and email called My Page and gained 1 million paying subscribers in the first 3 months.  While GPS services are just getting started in other regions, KDDI launched navigation service called EZ Navi and gained 5 million subscribers paying 210 JPY a month.

KDDI and scanR
Today, KDDI and scanR announced the availability of スキャンR, the Japanese version of scanR for au phones.  Check the press release here (Japanese). スキャンR is a simple way to save and share paper information, including documents, whiteboards and business cards. Any Japanese subscriber can use the service for free up to five times per month, but only au subscribers can use the business card scanner that turns pictures of Japanese business cards into digital contacts. 

To try it in Japanese or English, go to http://m.scanr.com on any mobile phone. 

scanR goes live on 3neXt

scanR, a service that enables camera phones and digital cameras to scan, copy and fax, is now available on 3neXt from the 3 Group.

The 3neXt website (http://next.three.com for computers or http://3next.mobi for phones) provides a lively resource of applications and website reviews for X-Series users and others to continue exploring the world of mobile broadband. In addition to scanR, 3neXt offer links to an ever growing database of applications and websites.

“3’s X-Series phones are a glimpse today of the future for all of us. Each X-Series phone has a powerful camera and a flat-rate data plan, so people can freely capture and share the moments that are important to them. Now with scanR, 3’s X-Series phones serve as mobile document hubs, which allow users to capture and share their paper documents,” said Rudy Ruano, CEO of scanR.

scanR is the easiest way to convert paper into digital information, so people can store, share and search it. With scanR, people can capture the information from handwritten notes, printed documents, business cards and more, with their camera phones. To use scanR, just snap a photo and send it to scanR. The photo is converted into a clear document, with the keywords and contact information extracted from the text, and returned as a searchable PDF or vCard file. scanR will even synchronize your information with popular applications such as Facebook, Salesforce and Plaxo.

Director and General Manager of 3’s Handset and Application team Frank Meehan says, “the 3 Group is proud to offer a mobile application which allows customers to turn paperwork into useful digital information in a few simple steps. Customers now have the ability to use their camera phones to scan, copy and fax in creative ways, which are not only fun but incredibly useful.”

Class Notes on Facebook

Class Notes by scanR is the easiest way to find and share notes from school on Facebook. If you missed a class or just want to see what your friends are studying, it’s easy to get electronic copies.  With scanR, you can share class notes that you wrote in a notebook, lecture notes that your teacher wrote on the whiteboard, or a page from a textbook.

There is no need to type your notes into an email. Just take pictures of your notes, send them to scanR, and get copies sent right into Facebook.  scanR will clean up and convert the pictures into clear, legible PDF files that are easy to share, view and print.  With Class Notes, you can see your friends’ notes and share your own, as easily as taking a picture!  Hey, we know you’re already on Facebook, now you can get some studying done while you are at it.

Here's a quick video tour:

To see your friends’ notes or upload your own, add Class Notes to your Facebook profile.

I’m not at student anymore, but Class Notes is not just for students. If you’re out of school, you can use it to share meeting notes and documents too.  Check out my Class Notes to see some examples.