Just in time for the end of the year, here are four smartphone apps that can be useful, depending on your needs. This month, we feature a business card scanner, an awesome remote desktop tool, an app to help you tie your tie and an app that can take the risk out of scanning QR codes.
CamCard
Vendor: IntSig Information Co., Ltd
Cost: Lite for free, or $6.99 for full version in the Apple App Store; Lite for free, or $6.99 for full version in the Android Market
We all get business cards from time to time and have to move the information from the card into our electronic contacts file. CamCard allows you to take a picture of the business card with your phone, and then the app automatically locates the pertinent information and creates a contact for you on your device. The app supports English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, and Hungarian cards. Since you can’t always get the orientation the same for every card, CamCard automatically adjusts orientation. CamCard also supports QR codes on cards and a lot more.
The free version — CamCard Lite — allows you to scan up to three cards initially and one per week thereafter. If you want to scan more, you need to upgrade to the paid version. In Figure A, you can see some other app features, including cropping and image enhancement.
Figure A
Modify the scanned image to suit your needs
In Figure B, note that you can take a number of different actions with a scanned card, including sending an email, locating the address on a map, doing a LinkedIn search, and more.
Figure B
Choose an action you’d like to initiate
In Figure C, you get a look at the Android edition of the app.
Figure C
