At CES: Ion's Book Saver personal scanner converts your books to digital

You're intrigued by eBook readers like the Kindle or Nook but have already invested a lot through the years in good old fashioned print books. You'd love to be able to schlep those along digitally without breaking your back or having to repurchase every title. Ion's would-be solution is its new $189 Book Saver Book Scanner, which lets you convert printed materials to digital PDF files that are compatible with popular electronic readers.

You can transfer books or periodicals to an eReader or computer via SD card or through USB. Ion, which is perhaps best known for digital turntables that convert LP records to MP3s, claims it takes less than 15 minutes to convert a 200-page book or about 1 second per two pages.

Still, there's manual labor involved that makes me question how widely it will be adopted. You place the book onto a cradle that's angled in such a way that you need not worry that pages lie completely flat. The contraption has two cameras that take separate images in rapid succession of each page of an open book after you press a button that loosely resembles a video game controller. You then lift a cover, turn the page and snap the button again. ION claims since you presumably own the books that you are scanning this is considered "Fair Use" and there's no need to worry about any rights restrictions.

The Book Saver Scanner is expected out in the April timeframe.

Speaking of scanners, at the LG booth I saw the LSM-100, billed as the "World's First Scanner Mouse." Indeed, a 300 dpi scanner is built onto the bottom of a USB mouse. Press a button on the side of the mouse and the built in camera kicks into action as you roll across a document. Press the button again when you've completed the scan. I'm told the scanner-mouse will appear mid-year at a price to be determined.

By Ed Baig