The PhotoNote app digitses analog material into an online photo notebook – for more efficient management and more effective communications.
New freemium app from Fuji Xerox: PhotoNote – an online photo notebook.
SkyDesk PhotoNote captures and stores analog content into digital form for more efficient storage and access and enables these content to be easily shared with co-workers, partners or customers for more effective communications.
Hand-written-character recognition
PhotoNote’s digitisation uses Fuji Xerox’s proprietary character-recognition technology for Optical Character Recognition (OCR) that includes recognition of hand-written characters.
The technology mimics a human’s visual information processing and this is the first time such technology is used on commercialised software.
Currently, only English and Japanese are supported.
Most of the features are free, with additional storage and Excel conversion feature available as paid options (prices within).
The app works with iOS and Android and is available in Singapore, Australia and Japan.
PhotoNote digitises physical memos or meeting notes jotted down during business discussions and stores them in the cloud – enabling easy access by the user and quick sharing of the information with others.
To digitise printed material, forms, handwritten memos and whiteboards, simply snap a photo using a smartphone or digital camera and upload the photo onto SkyDesk on the cloud.
The PhotoNote app automatically conducts image processing and OCR conversion, storing the image together with tags and additional text annotations, as well as text data from the conversion.
Easy search can be done on the database of PhotoNote records based on recorded time/date, tags, and the converted text.
Prices (excluding GST)
The free plan stores a maximum of 100 records.
Extra storage can be added in increments of 5,000 records per organisation (to support more users in the organisation).
For every 5,000 additional records, the price for each six-month block is S$15 in Singapore and A$12 in Australia.
Users can also opt for the ability to convert tabular forms printed on paper to Microsoft Excel files.
For each user, the price for every six-month block is S$21 in Singapore and A$16.50 in Australia.
SkyDesk
I was briefed by Nobushige Oguri, a cloud solutions expert from Fuji Xerox, on the PhotoNote and SkyDesk.
Although components of the SkyDesk suite faces competition from other software on the market, SkyDesk offers a one-stop solution that covers the entire spectrum of business requirements.
In particular, it is drawing interest from customers attracted to its lower pricing vis CRM provider Salesforce.com.
SkyDesk Services is a cloud-based business communications support suite targeting small and medium sized businesses (SMBs).
Hosted on the public cloud, SkyDesk comprises 14 apps (including PhotoNote) that provides a spectrum of functionalities an SMB needs to run its business.
These range from simple office automation tools and messaging to complex Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and group collaboration.
Tags: Apps, Australia, cloud, Fuji Xerox, Japan, OCR, PhotoNote, photos, PIM, Singapore, SkyDesk, software