Apparent Corporation, makers of the popular Intelliscanner barcode scanners, has announced that their new Doxie document scanner is in private beta-testing and on track for release to the public in November, 2009.
Doxie is a USB-powered 600-dpi photo, document, and receipt scanner designed to integrate with a number of undisclosed Web and Mac apps. While I’m personally disappointed that Apparent didn’t go with the pink and white Good & Plenty candy color scheme, the Doxie is heart-friendly and comes emblazoned with a number of pink hearts. The biggest heart is on the single scan button, which is just visible in the top right of the photo above. I was shocked to find a mistake in the press release, in which they said there were 9 hearts on the device. There are actually 10: one above the “i” in the logo, 8 after the logo, and one on the scan button.A cool thing about Doxie is that it will automatically know when you’re trying to scan a photo, clean up the photo (straighten it and trim if necessary), and then politely offer to put the photo into your iPhoto Library, Flickr pool, or other web apps. As an Apparent spokesperson noted, the company isn’t interested in coming out with yet another piece of software to store your receipts and documents. Instead, they want Doxie to work with as many existing Mac, Windows, and Web apps as possible. One comment from the developers that may point to some rather unique functionality is that they recommend using Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Doxie will retail for $129, and you can sign up for updates and early release information at the new website, which went live today.

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BusinessWeek recently surveyed some 2,500 companies around the world and compiled the 17-question responses (weighted 80%) along with revenue and margin growth (10%) and stock growth (10%) to come up with 2008’s list of the top 50 world’s most innovative companies. Apple again took the number one spot followed by Google. No surprises there. What is surprising (but was it really?) is that Nintendo, a company which had not made even the top 50 in the past, suddenly jumped into the elite top 10 and came in at seventh. To give perspective, Microsoft ranked 5th while Sony was 9th. With the brilliant DS Lite redesign and touch screen capability and the casual gamer market aimed Wii, there’s no doubt Nintendo is an innovative company. What surprises me is, how come it took so long?
The full list appears below:

1. Apple
2. Google
3. Toyota Motor
4. General Electric
5. Microsoft
6. Tata Group
7. Nintendo
8. Procter & Gamble
9. Sony
10. Nokia
11. Amazon.com
12. IBM
13. Reseach in Motion
14. BMW
15. Hewlett-Packard
16. Honda Motor
17. Walt Disney
18. General Motors
19. Reliance Industries
20. Boeing
21. Goldman Sachs Group
22. 3M
23. Wal-mart Stores
24. Target
25. Facebook
26. Samsung Electronics
27. AT&T
28. Virgin Group
29. Audi
30. McDonald’s
31. Daimler
32. Starbucks
33. eBay
34. Verizon Communications
35. Cisco Systems
36. ING Groep
37. Singapore Airlines
38. Siemens
39. Costco Wholesale
40. HSBC
41. Bank of America
42. Exxon Mobil
43. News Corp.
44. BP
45. Nike
46. Dell
47. Vodafone Group
48. Intel
49. Southwest Airlines
50. American Express

For a detailed list, see BusinessWeek’s list.

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Hopefully you didn’t just go out and buy a shiny new Intel quad core Q6700 CPU a few days ago because you could have had two today for the price you probably paid. Though it was just a year ago that Intel announced similar price cuts, Intel again announced that it would be slashing the prices on select quad core and dual core processors this past Sunday. Most notably, the 2.66GHz Q6700 Core 2 Quad and 2.66GHz X3230 Xeon both had identical price drops from $530 to $226. The remaining price cuts, plus the pricing for a few new processors:

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Intel is reportedly very interested in the sub-$400 ultra-portable laptop market that Asus opened up with its EeePC laptop. Could this photograph possibly be the Intel Netbook that is going to ship in June? These were taken by an undisclosed employee at an undisclosed OEM in the US.

The Intel Netbook is supposed to feature a 9″ LCD screen, 512MB RAM, 40GB HDD, with wi-fi support. From what I can make out of the blurry photos, it doesn’t look as hip or sleek as the EeePC, and did you notice that fat handle at the top? Who gave them that awful idea? Anyways, Intel’s got a few months to get their act together… assuming these photos actually are, of course, the Netbook.

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