Scandy: Yet Another Pointless Smartphone Stand

Chris Velazco is a mobile enthusiast and writer who studied English and Marketing at Rutgers University. Once upon a time, he was the news intern for MobileCrunch, and in between posts, he worked in wireless sales at Best Buy. After graduating, he returned to the new TechCrunch to as a full-time mobile writer. He counts advertising, running, musical theater,... → Learn More

We’re big fans of Kickstarter around here, but for every good project that gets its much deserved funding, there are innumerable lesser ideas trapped in financial limbo. Today’s case in point: the Scandy, a telescoping clamp that promises to turn your smartphone into a scanner.

The idea behind the Scandy is that since your smartphone has a fairly decent camera mounted on its rear end, it would make a half-decent scanner if you managed to hold it just right. Rather than leave that onus on the user, the Scandy clamps onto the nearest table and allows you to adjust its height to get the entire document in view.

This, in short, is completely ridiculous. The time necessary to whip out a Scandy, bolt it onto a desk and adjust the height would completely eclipse the time it would take to snap a few pictures and pick out the best one. Maybe there’s some untapped market out there that really wants to lug around a $40 set of plastic tubes in order to take pictures of paperwork, but with only 13 backers at time of writing, to call it a niche market would be an understatement.

John says it could be useful for library researchers who don’t want to spend 10 cents a copy at the old biblioteca, but seriously? Plus, wouldn’t this ruin the reading table’s finish?

Alas, I could be completely wrong (note: I’m not), and this could be the next must-have accessory for the road warrior in your life. The Scandy is compatible with all smartphones, mostly because you’re expected to just rest your phone on top of it and get snapping. If the $40 base model doesn’t strike your fancy, the limited edition model (plus capacitive stylus!) can be yours if you pledge $100, and a $500 donation nabs you the laser-engraved Signature Edition.

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Yet Another Questionable iPhone 5 “Spy Shot” Pops Up

Greg Kumparak is the editor of MobileCrunch.com, a mobile industry blog within the TechCrunch Network. Greg has been writing for the TechCrunch network since May of 2008. Greg was born in the outskirts of San Jose, CA, and now lives in the East Bay. → Learn More

We’ve seen a Bigfoot-esque iPhone 5. We’ve seen a totally fake (but supposedly based on the real deal) iPhone 5. Now, meet: the oddly angled, questionably skewed iPhone 5.

This shot comes from MacRumors forum-goer guigsh, and has been blasting off around the blogs all morning. Guigsh claims that he had hands-on with the device for “only 2 minutes” with “pictures forbidden”, all taking place “in the office of a French operator.”

Now, on the upside: this shot fits well enough with some of the rumors we’ve been hearing for so long: Slimmer? Yep. Smaller bezel around the display? Sure. But what about the tapered back? Or the more pronounced rounded edges? Ehhhh — slightly so, but that could be side effect of stretching/distorting in Photoshop.

Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure that’s whats going on here. Stare at the image for a minute or two, and stuff just starts to seem.. off. Then you start to notice it: why is his index finger so long? Why is the ear piece hole gaping like that? Why the heck is he holding it like that? The longer you look at it, the more it looks like a stretched out iPhone 4 being held in such a way to minimize obvious stretching of the fingers.

Forum hero roow110 set out to recreate the shot with his iPhone 4 and a dash of Photoshop distortion. Here is his “literally 30 second Photoshop job” (Note for clarity: The photo below is a confirmed fake attempting to recreate the shot above so as to debunk it):

Looks like this is myth is busted to me. What do you think?

(Update: Myth double-busted! Giz found that this image was floating around a full day before Guigsh posted it as his own, and was originally captioned (in French) with “A picture like this could drive some sites crazy…”)

Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer,...

Learn more

View the original article here

Yet Another Questionable iPhone 5 “Spy Shot” Pops Up

Greg Kumparak is the editor of MobileCrunch.com, a mobile industry blog within the TechCrunch Network. Greg has been writing for the TechCrunch network since May of 2008. Greg was born in the outskirts of San Jose, CA, and now lives in the East Bay. → Learn More

We’ve seen a Bigfoot-esque iPhone 5. We’ve seen a totally fake (but supposedly based on the real deal) iPhone 5. Now, meet: the oddly angled, questionably skewed iPhone 5.

This shot comes from MacRumors forum-goer guigsh, and has been blasting off around the blogs all morning. Guigsh claims that he had hands-on with the device for “only 2 minutes” with “pictures forbidden”, all taking place “in the office of a French operator.”

Now, on the upside: this shot fits well enough with some of the rumors we’ve been hearing for so long: Slimmer? Yep. Smaller bezel around the display? Sure. But what about the tapered back? Or the more pronounced rounded edges? Ehhhh — slightly so, but that could be side effect of stretching/distorting in Photoshop.

Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure that’s whats going on here. Stare at the image for a minute or two, and stuff just starts to seem.. off. Then you start to notice it: why is his index finger so long? Why is the ear piece hole gaping like that? Why the heck is he holding it like that? The longer you look at it, the more it looks like a stretched out iPhone 4 being held in such a way to minimize obvious stretching of the fingers.

Forum hero roow110 set out to recreate the shot with his iPhone 4 and a dash of Photoshop distortion. Here is his “literally 30 second Photoshop job” (Note for clarity: The photo below is a confirmed fake attempting to recreate the shot above so as to debunk it):

Looks like this is myth is busted to me. What do you think?

(Update: Myth double-busted! Giz found that this image was floating around a full day before Guigsh posted it as his own, and was originally captioned (in French) with “A picture like this could drive some sites crazy…”)

Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer,...

Learn more

View the original article here

Yet Another Questionable iPhone 5 “Spy Shot” Pops Up

Greg Kumparak is the editor of MobileCrunch.com, a mobile industry blog within the TechCrunch Network. Greg has been writing for the TechCrunch network since May of 2008. Greg was born in the outskirts of San Jose, CA, and now lives in the East Bay. → Learn More

We’ve seen a Bigfoot-esque iPhone 5. We’ve seen a totally fake (but supposedly based on the real deal) iPhone 5. Now, meet: the oddly angled, questionably skewed iPhone 5.

This shot comes from MacRumors forum-goer guigsh, and has been blasting off around the blogs all morning. Guigsh claims that he had hands-on with the device for “only 2 minutes” with “pictures forbidden”, all taking place “in the office of a French operator.”

Now, on the upside: this shot fits well enough with some of the rumors we’ve been hearing for so long: Slimmer? Yep. Smaller bezel around the display? Sure. But what about the tapered back? Or the more pronounced rounded edges? Ehhhh — slightly so, but that could be side effect of stretching/distorting in Photoshop.

Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure that’s whats going on here. Stare at the image for a minute or two, and stuff just starts to seem.. off. Then you start to notice it: why is his index finger so long? Why is the ear piece hole gaping like that? Why the heck is he holding it like that? The longer you look at it, the more it looks like a stretched out iPhone 4 being held in such a way to minimize obvious stretching of the fingers.

Forum hero roow110 set out to recreate the shot with his iPhone 4 and a dash of Photoshop distortion. Here is his “literally 30 second Photoshop job” (Note for clarity: The photo below is a confirmed fake attempting to recreate the shot above so as to debunk it):

Looks like this is myth is busted to me. What do you think?

(Update: Myth double-busted! Giz found that this image was floating around a full day before Guigsh posted it as his own, and was originally captioned (in French) with “A picture like this could drive some sites crazy…”)

Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer,...

Learn more

View the original article here