Now, send email using mobile phone camera
By siliconindia   |   Monday, 12 July 2010, 22:59 IST   |    5 Comments
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Now, send email using mobile phone camera
Bangalore: Soon, we will be able to send an email using a mobile phone camera, thanks to the HP Labs in Bangalore, which is about to roll out a technology that would convert any mobile with a camera into an emailing device, reports KV Ramana from DNA. DNA quotes Sudhir Dixit, Director of HP Labs India as saying "We are putting the technology to test. We plan to roll it out shortly." The technology would use high-end image processing to faciliate this. "It is all about making effective use of a mobile phone and a piece of paper," Dixit said. With this technology, the user just have to photograph the text, including the e mail address of the recipient, written on a paper or any where with a camera mobile phone with the software application that HP Labs is planning to roll out. The application will process the email image, convert it into normal text mail and send it to the addressee. "We find PC penetration and internet usage in India to be abysmally low. We found that people are also averse to using a keyboard and a mouse. They use paper everyday and the PC has not changed the way the paper is used. Local language content is also a key hurdle. There is not much content available in local language and for whatever is available, the keyboard is not very useful. But, at the same time, there are 600 million mobiles in India," Dixit said. "Normally, people carry a piece of paper and a mobile phone in their pocket. Our task was to combine both. In this process, we have developed this email technology," Dixit said. HP Labs then started working on surmounting these hurdles and launched a project called 'Big Bet' in November last year. As a part of this, research teams at the lab have come out with eight technologies that would bridge the IT divide and make effective use of the devices users already own, apart from a PC. The company has announced a technology dubbed as SiteonMobile, which has also been developed as part of the Big Bet project. This is aimed at making the internet content and services available to the masses even from low-end mobile phones without having to use a smartphone. This involves combining voice and SMS on low-end phones.

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