Scientists are developing sophosticated software algorithyms that will allow mobilecamera phones to explore the geology of a planet.

We have used a simple camera phone to significantly improve an `exploration system’ for astrobiology
and geology. This camera phone will make it much easier to develop and test computer-vision algorithms
for future planetary exploration. We envision that the `Astrobiology Phone-cam’ exploration system
can be fruitfully used in other problem domains as well.

By using a simple MMS text message the cameraphone can send data to a remote processing server and with some development this can happen without human intervention.

A service by Qipit.com now lets you convert photos of text straight from your camera phone into a pdf document, and then email it out to addresses you specify.

The quality of the resulting pdf obviously depend on the quality of your cameraphone, and qibit recomend at least 1.3 mega pixels.

The best thing is that, for now at least, the service is free!

We’re trying it out, and will let you know the results!