My Phax
Mitek Systems, Inc. has announced a new app that will allow iPhone users to send a fax using the camera on their phone. The Mobile Phax app gains its name from a combination of the words ‘fax’ and ‘phone’ and is part of the Mitek System’s family of apps called Office on My Phone, referred to as ‘OOMPH’. The intent behind the software is to allow customers to make further use of the cameras already built into their mobile phone devices which the company views as particularly useful to mobile professionals who would otherwise need to locate a nearby copy center in order to send a fax.
Using the optical camera on the iPhone, Mobile Phax takes a picture of any document and converts that to the Adobe PDF format, converting the image into a high quality printer friendly image so that the phone becomes something akin to a traditional fax machine. These printer friendly images are then sent via e-mail to the intended user for printing purposes. The patent pending IMagePROVE technology automatically rotates, crops and scales the picture of the document’s hard copy to render it suitable for printing.
The My Phax is available for download via Apple’s App Store for $4.99.
My O2 App Gives iPhone Users More Account Information
Mobile network provider O2 recently announced their latest app, My O2, has been released to allow iPhone customers easier access to their account data so that they can better track the amount they are spending via their phones. While this information has been previously accessible either online or through SMS, the My O2 app allows the data to be accessed via the iPhone’s unique interface. The developers hope that this will give customers greater freedom and encourage greater interaction with O2 services as the easier monitoring method leads to a greater sense of security for end users.
Both Pay Monthly and O2 Pay & Go customers will be able to view their tariff details, their remaining balances on their inclusive allowance, along with a summary, and their most recent bill in addition to Bolt Ons which may be part of their account.
Developer Mobile Interactive Group (MIG) assisted in the creation of the app and designed it with the idea of it making it easier to present on other smart phone platforms. The design process was also intended to ease the integration of even more features in the future.
The My O2 app is currently available for free download in the Apple App Store to all O2 users.
iPhone Users to have Speech to Text Capabilities According to New Patent
Apple recently filed for a patent that will bring speech to text technology to its iPhone and iPod product lines. According to the Baltimore Sun the document included not only a diagram of how the system works, but an explanation of the system as it would be used to compose an email. The documentation suggests that the speech recognition technology being filed for would recognize not only words and letters, but punctuation as well.
The limitations of previous voice recognition technologies are set to be pushed with this latest advance from Apple’s engineering team. In fact, the actualization of the technology as conceived now would be a huge win for the maker of the popular iPhone and quite likely shift a huge amount of profit their way if they are able to develop the technology before other competitors. The technology is seen as something of a coveted landmark because it would have a massive effect on both data entry and the retrieval of information at far quicker speeds than users currently experience through pressing buttons.
The patent includes mentions of allowing users to be able to save voice recordings for later processing into text and the ability to time stamp and date the recordings. This could lead to total voice control for iPod and iPhone, some experts suggest.