Ion Book Saver

Register Hardware reports: [edited]

Ion, the company best known for its USB turntables, is readying a gadget that will help you digitise your paperbacks, hardbacks, magazines and comics.

Called the Book Saver, it's a large frame into which you place an open book. Tap the Scan button and the spread is digitised and dropped onto an SD card, ready to be transferred to your computer. Each page is saved separately, thanks to the unit's two flash-equipped cameras.

Book Saver angles the tome to prevent as little as possible pressure being placed one the spine. You don't have to hold the pages down to get a flat, even surface.

The upper section sits on top of the book. When a pair of pages have been snapped, just lift Book Saver up, turn the page, and put it down again to take the next shot. Scanning a spread takes around seven seconds, Ion said.

The gadget will come with character-recognition software, allowing you to extract the text from the images.

Book Saver is due out in the March-April timeframe. No price has yet been set.
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ArtRage for iPad

Mail Online reports: [edited]

Using the ArtRage app, Kassan, whose Realist portraits are often mistaken for photographs, has embraced a new method of painting. Painting with just your finger has its benefits - no mess and, of course, the invaluable ability to effortlessly correct a mistake or undo the last stroke.

But, says Kassan, it can never replace 'real' painting: 'There are a number of concept painters who only paint using digital tools, and they make some really amazing work. But I think I'd miss the tactile feel of an oil painting and its luminosity too much to go completely digital.'
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Comic Sans Appraised

Amusing and thoughtful site that focusses on the history, use and misuse of this much maligned font, along with a selection of free alternatives.

Thanks to Julie for the link
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Smush.it

smushit.com reports: [edited]

Smush.it uses optimization techniques specific to image format to remove unnecessary bytes from image files. It is a lossless tool, which means it optimizes the images without changing their look or visual quality.

Smush.it runs on a web page it reports how many bytes would be saved by optimizing the page's images and provides a downloadable zip file with the minimized image files.
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Free Font - Classic Round

My Fonts reports: [edited]

Classic Round. It’s classic. It’s round. Classic design; present-day roundness. Versatile. Soft. Warm. Peaceful. For text and display use.

Medium and Medium Italic versions available for nowt.

via Font Squirrel
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Free Font - Days

Days is a contemporary-looking, sans-serif headline face with a reasonably full character set (no £ sign). Designed by Aleksey Maslov, Ivan Gladkikh, Alexandr Kalachëv, it is available for download via this link.

(Tip: to avoid downloading a massive ascii text file, right-click on the link, 'save to downloads', then delete the '.html' from the file's name).
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Free Font - Veggieburger

This clean, well-balanced typeface is an excellent answer to the, 'I know I shouldn't use Comic Sans, but what else is available?' question.

Available in three weights from Font Squirrel.
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