Camera phone′s are truly getting better vision, each day more mobile phones are introduced with higher quality camera modules, more computing power, more memory and faster connection speeds, you name it and it’s getting better fast! This has not gone unnoticed by businesses and independent developers who are continually creating new innovative ways to use mobile phones to improve the everyday lives of consumers and to make businesses more efficient.

A key take-away from this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), is that the new smart phone camera standard for 2009 is 3.2 megapixels with auto-focus. This is great news for all of us, as it makes the ability to copy, scan and fax anything from anywhere available on a broader choice of mobile handsets, and these handsets are more affordable than ever.

Today we are launching the Qipit Mobile Copy API, which gives another way for developers to access and use a mobile phone′s camera sensor. For the first time, we are making our patented award winning image processing technology available for outside developers. This is the same technology that powers the Qipit mobile copy consumer service that people use to capture written and printed information using a camera phone or digital camera.

What the Qipit Mobile Copy API Does

The Qipit technology overcomes many of the challenges created by camera phone pictures, such as file size, resolution, framing, compression, noise, vignetting, illumination, glare, contrast, tilt, and skew as well as motion and optical blur.

The following pictures demonstrate typical problems when using a camera as a scanner. Poor contrast, blurred images, shadows, unwanted background and dark grayish images make pictures of documents, newspapers, and forms challenging to read, and very expensive to print.

Qipit’s technology overcomes these challenges by transforming a photograph into a crisp clean ink-on-white scan quality copy.

For more details on Qipit’s technology, take a look at the presentation The Camera Phone as a Mobile Scanning Device.

How people use Qipit

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Since the launch of our Qipit consumer service our customers have used Qipit in ways were never imagined. People use Qipit to capture everything from whiteboards and wine labels to class notes and floor plans. Users invoice clients, get forms back to the office and get deals closed on the spot. We even had someone copy a 350 page book. Now that’s dedication.

How the API Works

Designed for web, mobile, enterprise and government applications developers, the Qipit Mobile Copy API works on off-the-shelf high quality camera phones and does not require any additional specialized equipment. The API transforms photos (in JPEG format) of documents such as expense reports, signatures, handwritten notes, contracts and other business and consumer information into scan-quality ink-on-white digital copies or qipits using Qipit’s scanning engine. The processed qipits are received and returned in a JPEG format. Copies can be made either in color or in black and white. The developer handles end-user management and authentication. Currently, the developer’s server can communicate with the Qipit server using REST and SMTP access methods, more access methods such as SOAP will be rolled out in the very near future. Check out our developer page to get more detailed information, code snippets and documentation. Also be aware that this is the first version of the API, so we may still have a few kinks. You can think of it as a beta API version.

What to build?

Based on early alpha trials, we are anticipating that developers using the Qipit API will come up with a variety of applications for a range of professions, from entrepreneurs and consultants to large enterprises and the government. Logistics can track inventories in unconventional places, sales forces can get the signed deal documents back to the office in an instant, accounting can get expense receipts from the road and consumers can copy from anywhere.

Maybe you are a CIO facing pressure to get more out of your mobile workforce. In this case Qipit can push the point of capture of key documents to the earliest point in the organization, saving time and eliminating input errors.Maybe you are the Chief Development Officer for an e-tailer looking to create a more personal way for people to give gifts or flowers online.Or maybe you are a single developer looking to create the next killer application for the iPhone, Blackberry or Android platforms. What you build is up to you. We are looking forward to seeing what developers large and small create.

~ Conrad

P.S. Don’t forget to check out and sign up for the Qipit API, and let us know what you think.