A new Book Scanner to be presented at the CES 2006 (Consumer Electronics Show) within the next few days, claims to be available at $35,000 per machine and able to do unattended scanning of a book at 248 pages per hour in color, 500 pages per hour B/W, at 100dpi. Book capacity up to 12 x 20 inches x 2 inch thick.

Slower rates of course, but max resolution is claimed to be up to 600 dpi in color or b/w. Windows compatible control software.

Product name "BookDrive."

Current book scanners used by libraries run $150,000 and require someone to turn the pages. Flatbed scanners are somewhat cheaper, but often can't be used without breaking the book's spine so the pages can lay flat.

Every home should have one of these!

The linked article is pretty brief, but it might be worth watching for if this thing is actually any good. As one example of what's missing, it doesn't say whether OCR is included; but TextBridge isn't all that expensive if it isn't.

More news possibly when the CES wraps up and the writeups begin to come out – in about a week maybe.

John