Sunday, November 18, 2007

Whole New Meaning to "Ripping Books"?

Gizmodo reports that Atiz Innovation Co., Ltd., a leading manufacturer of book digitization hardware and software, has announced the development of "BookSnap", a personal book scanner that allows the user to digitize, "rip," her own books. The Atiz website, http://www.atiz.com/, declares, on it's home page, that "It's not a scanner. It's a book ripper." It also declares that it allows the user to transform books into PDF's at 500 pages per hour. Assuming that you can turn the pages that fast, that means that you can convert your copy of "No Country for Old Men" into a digital book in about a half-hour.

The website is silent on the platform on which their software runs, or what kinds o ebook readers that the resulting books can be displayed. Since BookSnap converts books into PDF's, we know that books ripped in this way can be read on your computer or any device that will handle PDF's.