Portable document scanner having user interface and integrated communication means

A portable document scanner comprising:

• an image scanner for scanning an input document to generate a scan image;
• a processor;
• a wireless communications port that enables wireless communications with remote computing services;
• and
• a memory that stores instructions for execution by the processor, the instructions including instructions that, when processed, cause said processor to extract identity, position, and/or orientation of one or more optical semaphores from the scan image, where the extracted semaphores include (1) optical characters including letters, numerals, and/or punctuation, (2) informational indicia including bar codes, data graphs, pictures, and/or icons, and/or (3) document formatting indicators including lines, bars, arrows, and/or grids, and further including instructions that, when processed, cause said processor to communicate semaphore data to a remote computing service via the wireless communications port and to process the scan image to automatically append to the semaphore data further data including geolocation information related to the scan image.

A portable document scanner comprising:

• an image scanner for scanning an input document to generate a scan image;
• a processor;
• a wireless communications port that enables wireless communications with remote computing services;
• and
• a memory that stores instructions for execution by the processor, the instructions including instructions that, when processed, cause said processor to extract identity, position, and/or orientation of one or more optical semaphores from the scan image, where the extracted semaphores include (1) optical characters including letters, numerals, and/or punctuation, (2) informational indicia including bar codes, data graphs, pictures, and/or icons, and/or (3) document formatting indicators including lines, bars, arrows, and/or grids, and further including instructions that, when processed, cause said processor to communicate semaphore data to a remote computing service via the wireless communications port and to detect the availability and connectivity state of the wireless communications port.

A method of scanning a document with a portable document scanner, comprising:

• scanning the document with an image scanner to generate a scan image;
• processing the scan image, using a processor, to extract identity, position, and/or orientation of one or more optical semaphores from the scan image, where the extracted semaphores include (1) optical characters including letters, numerals, and/or punctuation, (2) informational indicia including bar codes, data graphs, pictures, and/or icons, and/or (3) document formatting indicators including lines, bars, arrows, and/or grids;
• enabling a user to select and to interact with software processes being executed by said processor via a user interface of the portable document scanner;
• communicating the semaphore data to a remote computing service via a wireless communications port of the portable document scanner, and
• enabling a user to select, via said user interface, image processing operations to be performed on the scan image, said image processing operations including at least one of auto cropping, scaling, rotating to deskew, background enhancement, image format conversion, despeckling, and modifying a histogram of the scan image.

A method of scanning a document with a portable document scanner, comprising:

• scanning the document with an image scanner to generate a scan image;
• processing the scan image, using a processor, to extract identity, position, and/or orientation of one or more optical semaphores from the scan image, where the extracted semaphores include (1) optical characters including letters, numerals, and/or punctuation, (2) informational indicia including bar codes, data graphs, pictures, and/or icons, and/or (3) document formatting indicators including lines, bars, arrows, and/or grids;
• processing the scan image, using said processor, to automatically append to the semaphore data further data including geolocation information related to the scan image;
• and
• communicating the semaphore data and geolocation information to a remote computing service via a wireless communications port of the portable document scanner.

A method of scanning a document with a portable document scanner, comprising:

• scanning the document with an image scanner to generate a scan image;
• processing the scan image, using a processor, to extract identity, position, and/or orientation of one or more optical semaphores from the scan image, where the extracted semaphores include (1) optical characters including letters, numerals, and/or punctuation, (2) informational indicia including bar codes, data graphs, pictures, and/or icons, and/or (3) document formatting indicators including lines, bars, arrows, and/or grids;
• detecting, using said processor, the availability and connectivity state of a wireless communications port of the portable document scanner;
• and
• communicating the semaphore data to a remote computing service via the wireless communications port of the portable document scanner.