Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Kindle Picture vs. Photocopy

One reason I’ve been hesitant to mainly use my Kindle for buying new books is I’ve sometimes had to convey important information from a book to friends, and it was best to photocopy the pages.  If I need to photocopy pages from new books I buy, they’ll be stuck inside my Kindle. 

Or will they? 

I had this weird idea: 

Pre-copyright Bleak House
by Charles Dickens 

Yes, it works!  I can take a digital photo of a page from my Kindle (remember those commercials showing how it can be read in bright sunlight?), download it, and send it to friends. 

The above example is very crude, with no flash on and the lamp obviously on the north side of the book.  Think of what could be done if someone set up a simple stand for the camera with balanced light sources for an even effect. 

Come to think of it, this could be done with normal books, using a digital camera.  Libraries might set up stands for this, so patrons could take pictures of pages if they didn’t want to pay for the photocopier. 

And for those of you who have peered down into photocopiers, you’ll realize what I’ve just outlined is a way of reverse-engineering the photocopier.  The arrangement is upside-down, is all.  And the business part of it is something you hold in your hand.  

2 comments:

  1. Hmmm. I've never peered into the workings of a photocopier, so I have no idea what happens inside there!

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  2. It used to be that if you peered down into the glass of a photocopier, you could see what resembled a camera lens looking back up at you.

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