Opinion: Don’t copy it, Qipit!

Hot on the heels of their Magic Wanda product that we looked at last week, French mobile application developer RealEyes3D is now promoting a mobile scanning application called Qipit. Like competitive services such as scanR, Qipit enables users to take a picture of a hand written note, printed document, whiteboard brainstorm or similar, and transform it into a scan-quality digital file. While not necessarily that arresting at first glance, it doesn’t take long to realize the sheer number of uses this service has. What’s more there’s no software to download and, for the moment at least, it’s free.

To take advantage of the service, users need only capture a physical document such as class notes, a magazine article or business document send it to qipit as an MMS directly from the phone, via e-mail or from a Qipit account. The photo is then turned into a readable PDF file that you can store or send via e-mail, fax or MMS. The range of applications is almost limitless, but here are a few examples:

• Contract signing: While onsite and out of reach of office facilities, a copy of an urgent contract is captured on the phone, converted, send to a fax number, signed and returned
• Inpromptu information sharing: You come across an interesting article while reading a magazine in a cafe, capture it with your camera phone, and send the converted document to a friend or colleague
• Extra level of back-up: Capture birth certificates, passports. legal and financial documents and store them online as a separate source of file recovery in the event of a hardware failure

Of course, there are also some rather less savory applications for this kind of service such as industrial espionage or the copying of examination papers, and it’s probably only a matter of time before someone falls foul of temptation in a fairly high profile way.

However, despite the potential for misuse, it’s an interesting service that could prove useful to a wide range of people in an equally wide variety of situations. Given the shortfall in quality when compared with the original physical document or electronic file, the service is probably at it’s most valuable in terms of spontaneous distribution of unexpected or time-sensitive information, rather than as a replacement for original electronic or paper document communication and storage.

Hamish M.