For the last three years, users of the Qipit service enjoyed the highest quality mobile scanning service at no charge, from any camera phone. During this time, we thoroughly enjoyed serving the community that developed around the service. Since launching the mobile copy industry, we have been driven by a single, obsessive quest: to provide the best quality, easiest to use service for making copies of documents and other types of printed or written information while outside the office.

The evolution of the mobile phone industry at large has met our expectations. Handsets have grown (much) more powerful, and the cameras have steadily improved their vision, to a point where a significant portion of the new phones shipped now feature autofocus and at least 2 megapixels in resolution. This has led us to explore alternatives models for delivering the best Qipit value to our users:

Recently, we have been working closely with enterprises to provide them with a mobile copy solution that match their needs for a robust service that is easy to integrate in their I.T. solutions and provides best-of-class copies to support their key business processes. This is necessarily very different from the existing qipit.com free service, and has proven an exiting opportunity for the technology.

Back in September of this year, we launched our first iPhone application, Qipit White. This was the first step towards our new strategy. Qipit White, does all of the processing on the handset instead of sending images to the Qipit server for processing. In our opinion, this provides a much better user experience, reducing processing time down to 5-10 seconds, from at least one minute when using a server based solution. In addition, Qipit White features improved connectivity to other services and tools.

Qipit White is positioned as a white board capture tool (OK, and flipcharts, too). This way, iPhone users can use it regardless of their generation of iPhone device (only the iPhone 3GS has an autofocus; close-up pictures of documents shot with the original iPhone or with the 3G model will be blurred (due to out-of-focus) and therefore will provide poor quality copies of documents). We will soon follow up with new applications for document copy, on the iPhone followed by the other popular smart phone platforms.

What does this mean for the Qipit online service and its users?

Starting today (October 21, 2009), the Qipit online service at www.qipit.com no longer accepts new user registrations.

Our existing users will be able to use the service as normal until November 9, 2009, at which time the ability to create new qipit copies (whether using web upload, Facebook applications, Shozu, copy@qipit.com, or color@qipit.com) and to share (by sending faxes and emails) will be discontinued.

On December 2, 2009, the service will be taken offline.

We encourage users to download to your computer all of the information you would like to keep, prior to this date. You can do this by clicking on “Veiw PDF” in the MY Documents section of the website then saving the PDF, or by simply emailing a copy to yourself using the “Email It” function.

After the shutdown, all users copies stored on our servers will not be accessible any more.

To our users, I want to say thank you for helping us build this service. We have learned much on this journey together. We will take the lessons learned from the past three years, to create even more useful smart phone applications for you.

To all of the bloggers, vloggers , podcasters, tweeters, reporters, radio show hosts, book and magazine authors, who took the time to spread the word about our service, I want to extend a heart felt thank you. There is no greater honor than having your service touted by others on TV in books, blogs, newspapers, magazines, videos and radio shows. Receiving an alert that Qipit was featured in the some form of media is always a thrill and an honor. We could not have grown this service without your help. We are hopeful; you will find our smart phone applications useful and you will continue your support of Qipit.

As always, we welcome your thoughts and comments.

Thanks,

~ Conrad

One question we see, is how to get the iPhone working smoothly using the Qipit service. Depending on which iPhone you are using, your capabilities are a little different, so let′s start by defining the capabilities of the different iPhone models.

iPhone and iPhone 3G

The original iPhone and the iPhone 3G, both have 2 megapixel fixed focus cameras so they are great for capturing whiteboards, flipcharts, paperboards and other large format displays of information. They are also good for some larger handwritten notes. However, both of these models fall a little short for sending faxes and scanning documents because of the absence of the ability to change the focal point of the lens to take a clear close up picture.

There is however, an innovative solution for this problem, available from Griffin Technology called the Clarifi. The Clarifi is a protective case, with a macro focus lens that is optimized for capturing documents. Think of the Clarifi as a trendy pair of glasses for your iPhone or iPhone 3G that enables your phone to be fully compatible with all of the functionality of Qipit.

iPhone 3Gs

The iPhone 3Gs, comes equipped with a 3 megapixel autofocus camera, so there is not a need for a third party macro focus lens such as the Clarifi. This means the 3Gs will work great for scanning documents, flyers, magazine articles, receipts, forms, whiteboards and flipcharts, you name it. The next step is configuring your iPhone to work with Qipit.

Email Setup

If you did not setup your iPhone email address when you first registered, you can add this address under My Account, then click Email Settings and select Add Email Address. Make sure you confirm the email address by clicking the link that is sent to your email account. Once this is done, I suggest you add Qipit as a contact in your address book and add the Qipit email address: copy@qipit.com (for black and white copies) and color@qipit.com (for color copies). This will make it easy to use Qipit in the future.

Tip: You can add an “a” in front of the Qipit name (ie “a Qipit”), to keep Qipit at the top of your contacts list.

Note: Since the iPhone is setup to use email, there is not a need to setup your phone number unless you want to use Qipit with MMS (aka Picture Messaging). I advise against using MMS, since it may downsize your image (Read more on image downsizing below).

Taking the picture

After you have setup your iPhone, the next step is to capture the information you want to copy or fax by taking a picture of it. You can also reference the post Receiving a clear qipit document in 4 easy steps for more on that subject.

Sending full resolution photos to Qipit

The next step is getting the photo off of your iPhone at the maximum resolution. Typically Qipit needs 1,000,000 pixels (or 1 megapixel) of resolution to process an image; however this is the minimum and would not accommodate replicating very densely packed content. The type of content density you typically find in a 12 point font printed document or magazine article.

For maximizing the iPhone you want to send the full resolution image to the Qipit server to be process. This full resolution is 3,145,728 pixels (2048×1536) on the iPhone 3Gs and 1,920,000 pixels (1600 x 1200) on the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G.  If you follow the natural path of taking a picture, then simply tapping the Share button, you will only be sending a measly 480,000 pixels (800 x 600) image. Yep, your 2 or 3 megapixel image is not even sent as a full megapixel. So, to get around this obstacle (You will need iPhone OS 3.0 or later), you simply use the copy and paste feature on the phone.

Hold down on either the thumbnail of the image in the camera roll, or directly on the image and “Copy” will appear.

Touch “Copy” and it will turn blue. This copies the full-sized image to the clipboard. Now compose a new email and hold down until “Paste” appears. Touch “Paste” and it will insert the full-sized image into the new email.

Another option is to use the Share button in Album view, this option also allows you to send more than one photo at a time. This is very handy for sending a multiple page fax or document. Both methods allow you to send a full sized image from your phone, maximizing the capabilities of Qipit and the usefulness of your iPhone.

Please share any more tips and tricks you have found using Qipit and your iPhone.

(Special thanks to our friends at lifehacker for bringing the copy and paste iPhone trick to our attention)

~ Conrad

P.S. If you have an iPhone, be sure to checkout our Qipit White iPhone application. It is an even more convenient way to copy and share whteboards and flipcharts.

Now how do you save it, share it or even print it? Enter your iPhone and Qipit White.

Qipit White is a new application for your iPhone that allows you to copy and share whiteboards and flipcharts in a snap. The application takes that dark, hard to read iPhone picture, removes unwanted shadows, glare, whitens the background and enhances the colors of your writing. The result is a fully transformed ink-on-white digital copy of your original creation.

Now you can easily collaborate with colleagues, share it with your friends and family, save it for future reference or print it as a handout for the next meeting. All from the convenience of a device that you know and is always with you, your iPhone.

Here is how it works:

Once you have downloaded the Qipit White iPhone Application from the Apple App Store on your iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G S or iPod Touch¹, then you are ready to begin.

Launch the application by tapping the Qipit White icon on your phone.

Take a picture of the whiteboard, greyboard, copyboard, flip chart or paperboard. The application will immediately begin to transform the photo as seen in this screen shot below.

Then presto! In just a few moments you have a highly legible digital copy of your information. Notice how the glare, shadows and that dark tint has been removed. Your left with just the information you need and none of the baggage you get from just a photo.

Next you can easily share your copy as a PDF or a picture by pressing the appropriate button. A copy is automatically saved to your iPhone, so can can press cancel to make the next copy.

You can also, access and manage all of your digital copies at any time.

If you are already familiar with the free Qipit (www.qipit.com) mobile online service, you may be thinking what is the difference? Qipit White is fully independent from any server side processing. It transforms the photograph into the qipit copy, directly on the handset. Qipit on the other hand, processes your photos on our servers and saves a copy online plus much more. Both products use our patented and award winning scanning engine and benefit from the reliability, knowledge and expertise you would expect from the the inventors of the mobile copy industry.

We are very excited about Qipit White and believe it is an essential collaboration and archival companion for whiteboards and flipcharts. I hope you will find it as useful as we do. If you have any thoughts or ideas on how to make it even better, please let us know.

Thanks,

~ Conrad

Just like everyone else, I′m always on the move. The last thing I want to do is retype everything from a whiteboard or try to find a traditional scanner to copy an article, then convert it to a PDF and email it. That′s when the Qipit publish feature comes in handy, with just a click and a moment I’m able to publish the information at hand.  With a click of my thumb on my camera phone, I capture whatever I need, then I send it to Qipit. A few clicks later, I’m published on the web with a unique URL. I can even share it on my favorite social media service or blog it with ease by embedding my qipit in my blog post like this:

Here’s how you can publish and share your qipits in 4 easy steps.

Please share your “clickable moments” or let us know if you have any questions about getting published using Qipit.

~ Conrad

During the Entrepreneur Showcase hosted by the The Telecom Council of Silicon Valley, Qipit was voted as the product creating the most shareholder value.  We are thrilled and have to agree!

Our very own Oliver Ricordel, VP of Product Management, presented Qipit for the Enterprise, you can watch the livestream here, fast forward to 41:30 to see the presentation on Qipit for the Enterprise.

Let us know if you think Qipit for the Enterprise can help your business.

~ Conrad

If you have any questions about Qipit you can check out our FAQs for an immediate answer, or you can email support. You can also check out the Using Qipit category on the Qipit Blog for even more details. Due to higher than normal volume, Qipit is responding a little slower than normal. Typically it takes less than a minute to process and image. We appreciate your patience and look forward to having you as a user.

Thanks Kim, we appreciate you featuring our service!

~ Conrad

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.

As usual, I am making it easy with a free downloadable football squares template, and I have included the football squares rules.

Football Squares Rules

Within the grid, the top row of numbers represents the possible points scored of team one and the left column represents team two’s score. (The numbers are not placed in these squares until the players have added their names to the grid.)

All the players add their names to the other free squares within the grid. Depending on the number of players, some may choose more than one square. As soon as the players have filled in all of the squares, numbers from 0 to 9 are drawn blindly and filled in across the top row. This is repeated for the left column. When you’re done, you’ll have numbers from 0 to 9 in random order across the top row and down the left column, and names filled in all of the other squares.

The object of the game is to “choose” the score of the game by having your name in the square at the intersection of the final points of each team (as you draw an imaginary line down from team one’s score at the top and across from team two’s score). If there is a two-digit number, the second digit is used for the match. For example, if team one has 14 points and team two has 21, the person in the square at the intersection of #4 from the top row and #1 from the left column wins. You can have four winners by selecting the scores at the end of each quarter, two winners by using the half-time score and the final, or just have one big winner using the final score of the game.

Remember it is easy to make a copy for free using your camera phone or digital camera.

Take a picture of your football squares template with a megapixel plus camera phone (equipped with auto-focus), remember to leave a little bit of the background around the edges, as I did in the sample picture below.

Next, turn the picture into a qipit by sending the picture to color@qipit.com using email, picture messaging (MMS) or upload it using your computer. Qipit will turn your photo into an easy-to-read, printable ink-on-white digital copy.

Here are some of the details of the upcoming games.

NFL Playoff Schedule (All times Eastern Standard)

Divisional Round

Saturday (January 10, 2009)

AFC Game One at LP Field, 4:30 p.m. (CBS)
NFC Game One at Bank of America Stadium, 8:15 p.m. (Fox)

Sunday (January 11, 2009)
AFC Game Two at Heinz Field, 4:45 p.m. (CBS)
NFC Game Two at Giants Stadium, 1 p.m. (Fox)

Conference Championship Round

Sunday (January 18, 2009)
AFC Conference Championship, 6:30 pm (CBS)
NFC Conference Championship, 3 pm (Fox)

Superbowl XLIII

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Sunday (February 1, 2009)
SUPER BOWL XLIII, Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, Fla., 6 pm
Kick-off: 6:28 pm
Super Bowl XLIII Half Time Show: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

Have fun rooting for you favorite team.

~ Conrad

Vodaphone Blackberry Storm Ad

But with all the hype and reviews, not much about the quality of the camera other than the specs. The Storm has a 3.2 Megapixel camera with flash and auto-focus. That sounded great, but with all this anticipation and built-up disappoint over the iPhone’s camera, I was anxious to find out how well the Storm would work with Qipit.

So this morning I headed over to pickup my pre-ordered Blackberry Storm at the Verizon Wireless store. After a day of testing in the real world, I am happy to report the Blackberry Storm gets our highest Qipit test rating of 4 stars! That means it can caputre text as small as 6 point font. That is amounst the best performance of any camera phones (not quite as good as the 5 mega-pixel Nokia N95), but the Storm is certainly at the top of the heap with smartphones that have a full QWERTY keyboard.

Here are the results:

Blackberry Storm Qipit Test (Original Picture)

Blackberry Storm Qipit Test (Qipit Copy)

Click image to see close-up or download PDF

The camera has several setting options including image stabilization, picture size (2048×1536, 1024×768, 640×480), picture quality (Superfine, Fine, Normal) and Geotagging. By setting up email, you can send multiple attachments, this means you can make a qipit of a multi-paged document with ease. Just attach each picture in your email in the order you want the pages, then send them to color@qipit.com. If you want to name the document include that in the subject line and if you want to fax or email directly to someone you simply include the fax number or email address in the body of the email. That’s it and with the Storm’s keyboard typing this information is a breeze.

Oh yeah, here is some other news. Qipit is in this month’s PC World Magazine (December 2008 issue on page 104). Check out the qipit I made of the article using the Storm.

We are always happy when others help spread the word about how easy it is to copy and share magazines, newspapers and whiteboards with your camera phone. Now with the Blackberry Storm, it just got a lot easier.

~ Conrad

This week T-mobile, HTC and Google launched the much anticipated G1 smartphone (aka Google Phone) using the Android operating system.

From a hardware standpoint, we love the 3.2 mega-pixel camera with autofocus, finally! The phone also sports a keyboard, 3G internet connection, a browser, and of course it runs applications. These features will make it great for using Qipit to scan, copy and fax documents on the go. Simultaneously Google launched the Android Market, this is an application store that allows users to download applications for their new shiny mobile phone.

Verizon Wireless and Research in Motion (RIM) will soon launch the new Blackberry Storm that will also possess a 3.2 mega-pixel camera with auto-focus.

The twist for the Storm will be it’s revolutionary touch screen keyboard. RIM developed a new technology they call ClickThrough, which consists of a suspension system that lies beneath the display, so that when you go to select an application or enter text, you actually push the screen down like you would any other tactile button.The word is that the Storm will be out for the holiday shopping season, watching Verizon Wireless closely, I can say that they have everything prepared for the launch, so it should be very soon. RIM also announced they will launch a Blackberry Application Storefront in March 2009, with a similar model to the Android Market and iPhone App Store.

The significance of the software marketplaces is that it is easier for developers to get their applications to the users. The traditional process for developers to publish software through the wireless carrier is long, cumbersome and many times just not feasible, especially for vertical or unproven applications. Application marketplaces will allow the best applications to bubble to the top by letting the market place (i.e. the users) decide what are the best applications, rather than a handful of overwhelmed decision makers at the wireless carriers.

There is another flagship handset to note, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone (aka the Tube). This touch screen camera phone has a 3.2 megapixel resolution camera with Carl Zeiss optics and auto-focus. Are you seeing the trend?

Nokia has already launched the phone in London and reports it will be sold in the U.S. for the holidays.

Now the question is when will the far-sighted iPhone get an upgrade to compete with it’s keen-eyed competition? My prediction is that in the next iPhone design, the camera will not be overlooked. What do you think? I think all the stars are finally lining up.

~ Conrad