Chapter 22: Scanners and Digital Cameras

This chapter presents the PC 98 requirements and recommendations for still-image devices, specifically digital cameras and scanners, including sheetfed, flatbed, handheld, and film-scanning devices.

The still-image device market is growing rapidly in the consumer and mass-market segments, stimulated by applications such as Internet authoring and home publishing, and by the availability of low-cost, high-resolution color printers. For PC 98, the important design issues include the following:

• Increased image-resolution quality at consumer price points
  
  
• Incorporation of new bus standards such as USB and IEEE 1394 into still-image peripheral devices
  
  
• Integration of a fast transfer mechanism for non-tethered devices such as digital cameras
  
  
• Improved ease of connectivity and installation for the end user—that is, by reducing components to be installed, such as power supplies and add-on cards, by simplifying the installation procedure to limit the number of user responses required, and by ensuring compliance with Plug and Play requirements
  
  
• Incorporation of color-calibration support across devices
  
  
• Implementation of push-model behavior, where events are triggered based on user-initiated actions at the device, such as inserting paper or pushing a button