I’m surprised that brick and mortar bookstores still allow me to step foot in their establishments. When I’m not buying eBooks, I’m usually hitting up stores to look for books. After finding one I want, it’s not uncommon for me to whip out my iPhone and see how much the book is on Amazon. Depending on the deal, it’s a 50-50 shot that I purchase the book from the store I’m in: half the time I walk up to the register, the other half, I complete the order process at Amazon. Yup… the Borders and Barnes & Noble folks just LOVE me. ;)Now what if you took my approach by leveraging a web-enabled smartphone, the Google Android OS and Android Scan, an open source app written by Jeffrey Sharkey? Well to get the full effect, you have to hit this video demo. I did and I could swear that Jeffrey wrote the app just for me.The software allows you to snap the picture of a barcode for a book, CD or DVD using your Android-run phone. Using the data connection on the phone, the well-designed software then provides information on the title as well as detailed reviews from Amazon. It also provides search results for pricing at both online and traditional retailers, with local stores highlighted for you. There are links to those retailers websites or you can tap to initiate a call to your local shop and verify stock. There’s even more, but my description can’t match the video, so I highly recommend it.Android Scan was chosen Google as one of the top 50 Android apps, so hats off to Jeffrey for showing us what he and this forthcoming OS can do!(via SvenOnTech)
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