The business card reader and the changing role of visiting cards
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by: annrogers25
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Word Count: 500
A business card reader is a device for scanning and automatically storing business cards electronically under the relevant fields. The contact details on the card, such as the name, title, company, address, city, state, zip, country, phone, fax, mobile, email, and web address are all automatically stored for easy referencing digitally. This is made possible by using advanced OCR (optical character reader) technology. It is, thus, a very effective tool for storing and managing ones contact information.
Contrary to what might appear at first thought, a business card reader is still not redundant in this age of smart phones and personal digital assistants. One does not need to look far for the reason; a persons full contact details, as given on such a visiting token, would take much too long to recite and store on a personal digital assistant, even the likes of which are out today. Furthermore, exchanging business cards is still a means of social formality. But they come with the inherent risk of being lost. Data stored in digital form does not suffer from this risk. Despite that, manually transferring data for every contact you meet into your cell phone is much too tedious a task.
The ideal solution is the business card reader; a device that would automatically carry out this burdensome task. There are several types of optical character readers out in the market now, many of which are capable of accurately analyzing even human handwriting and converting it into digital. But what sets the business card reader apart from them is the fact that not only does it detect the data, it also analyzes and processes it and files it under the appropriate fields without any human assistance.
It hardly needs to be pointed out that business cards have almost become redundant. It is a much more convenient method to just store and message the information electronically via mobile phones, which eliminates the need for such an OCR device. But practicality is not the only consideration here; its importance stems from its status as a courteous social custom. The business card reader, thus, serves to bridge the two worlds. It keeps alive the tradition of the past without impeding the needs of the future either.
A business card reader, thus, is by far a more fashionable way of being modernized. However, it should by no means be regarded as a replacement for todays far more efficient personal digital assistants, but rather as an extra equipment to be used alongside them. A time may come when visiting cards themselves go out of fashion, and the device too will become useless paraphernalia, but in todays world at least, which is marked by transition, it is a tool which reflects the spirit of that very change and compromise. Till the past has been effaced completely, the business card reader will continue in popularity as a reminder of what we are leaving behind.
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