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Samsung A800 - Cell Phone that Reads a Business Card

Written by Rich McComas

Since discovering the new Samsung A800, I have given up on my elusive search for the phone that can do everything. The truth is that no phone can be everything to everyone, so for the fickle mobile aficionados out there, it is about picking and choosing what floats your boat at the time you need to make your next cell phone purchase.

What floats my boat this week is a single feature found on the Samsung A800 to be offered soon in the US by CDMA carriers (Sprint, Verizon, etc). The new A800 phone includes a 2 megapixel camera with OCR software for reading in a business card into your contact list. You simply snap a photo of the business card, and the software will find the contact name and phone number on the card, and after you confirm the data, it enters it into your address book. Now, is that cool or what? I think I would want one of these phones just to knock people off their feet at parties, let alone the practical uses associated with attending so many trade shows and conferences.

So, is this one feature enough to make this phone a 2005 success story? The answer is "unlikely," especially since I expect to see every cell phone OS/application developer out there scrambling to implement the same feature. The problem with OCR is memory requirements and accuracy, with more accurate and versatile solutions taking more memory and more CPU cycles. When I get the A800 in hand for awhile, I will compare the speed, accuracy and versatility to the CardScan Executive, today's standard in business card reading technology, but until then this will need to remain a gee-wiz technology. Even if it can't read all business cards and fonts, and can't import all the data, this is still a feature which puts this phone on the top of my gadgets I gotta try list!

As an aside, there are some other reasons that someone might want to buy the A800 phone, including the beautiful QVGA display, the 2 megapixel camera, and the transflash memory (so you can store lots of pictures and transfer them to a printing kiosk, or even print directly from the camera using USB). From my perspective, 2 megapixels isn't much to get excited about, especially at a time when the same manufacturer tells us that 5 megapixel phones are on the near horizon, but if you can't stand the idea of using a numeric keypad to enter one more contact into your phone, maybe 2 megapixels is enough to take the plunge.

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TECH2 LAKE HOUSE

UPDATE - The exterior of the Technology Lake House is complete and we are now working on interior finishing and electronics. Last year, San Francisco's Channel 7 ABC News ran a special video report on the construction progress of the Technology Lake House, and we expect them back for a follow-up soon. Click HERE for a DLINK Live Video Feed with pan and zoom features (userid=user, no password, daylight hours only).

Ron Rosberg's current project home, the Technology Lake House, is currently under construction on the shores of Clearlake in Northern California. Even though the house is a wireless demo house, we have installed more than seven miles of wires in the walls for dozens of flat panel TVs, speakers, control panels, and sophisticated lighting. So far, more than a dozen technology and fixture manufacturers have agreed to sponsor this project, which has been simmering in Ron's head since he attended the first CES show in New York in 1967. The 7,500 square foot project (plus three existing rustic cabin guest houses) is being built on a five-acre Honeymoon Cove resort with 500 feet of beach directly across from Konocti Harbor Resort. This summer retreat will host technology gatherings annually, inviting Western states home builders, contractors, and technology consultants for a live open house showcasing the latest in home technologies. There is room to park plenty of boats, so plan on coming up for some lake fun after the project is complete. For more info, send email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , or call 707-995-2683. To see the latest photos, visit Ron's Flickr gallery.

We are currently looking for products to evaluate in these areas:

Home automation: lighting, security, and entertainment
A/V technology for the 500 SF home theater media demo room

Hot News on Cool New Features: The ENTIRE front of the home is made of 21 sliding NanaWall glass panels that fold into the walls, opening the entire home up to the lake during demo days.

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