What can't you do with a cell phone these days? The latest models allow you to take pictures, record movies, watch TV, play music, browse the Internet, send e-mails and even make the occasional phone call.

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MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android is a free Android data recovery software that is specially designed to restore deleted and lost data from Android devices, including Android phones, tablets, and SD cards. The supported data types are various including photos, videos, messages, documents, and more. Our first Android scanning method is part of an app that's probably on your phone already: Google Drive. Drive has an out-of-sight option for scanning documents via your smartphone's camera. Load the card information into a digital wallet, like Samsung Pay, Android Pay or Apple Pay, either by scanning or entering the numbers by hand. (Not every bank may work with every mobile payment. Smartphones with iOS 10 or earlier can scan many types of QR codes using the Wallet app, which stores event tickets, boarding passes, coupons, and loyalty cards. The Wallet app can't read every QR code, though; only items it recognizes as passes, like the examples above. For a one-stop QR reader, you'll need a third-party app.

But what if you want to use your cell phone's multimedia technology for more than just entertainment? What if you actually need to get some work done? No problem. With a simple camera phone and some new software, you can turn any mobile phone into a scanner, fax machine and copier.

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Camera phones are everywhere. According to 2007 statistics, 79 percent of cell phones sold in the United States had a built-in digital camera [source: RCR Wireless News]. An estimated 1 billion camera phones are in use around the world [source: ComputerWorld]. The picture quality of these phones is improving quickly. Some cell phone manufacturers have already released five-megapixel camera phones and there are rumors about a 10-megapixel model hitting the shelves any day now [source: AsiaMedia].

Scanning and faxing from a cell phone works through the same technology as Internet faxing. A document, in this case a digital photograph, is e-mailed to an Internet fax service that converts the digital photo into fax data. The fax service then sends the fax to the recipient over a phone line. For more information, read How Internet Fax Works.

The cool thing about these new cell phone 'scan and fax' services is that they can optimize and compress camera phone images into clear, readable PDF documents. Using special imaging algorithms, the cell phone scanning software can take a photo of an open book -- with shadows in the crease and curved pages -- and turn it into a flat image with uniform background color and sharp text. The software also simplifies the image, getting rid of unnecessary digital noise to make the file smaller and easier to send over a cellular data network.

What exactly do you need to scan and fax documents with your cell phone? Does it work on all camera phones? Is it expensive? Read on to find out how to get started scanning and faxing from your cell phone.

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The first thing you need is the right kind of phone with the right kind of camera. You need to check with the specific scan and fax service to see if your phone qualifies. The most widely accepted phones are 3G phones made by Nokia and Sony Ericsson. Most importantly, your phone will need to have at least a two-megapixel camera. Currently, there are about 300 different phones on the market that meet this requirement [source: scanR].

Also, you'll need to have a data plan in addition to a voice plan with your cellular provider. Data plans allow you to browse the Internet and send multimedia text messages (MMS) and e-mails. Data plans cost extra money and vary depending on the carrier. Some carriers limit the size of data files you can send across the network. So you might want to check with your cellular provider before signing up for a scan/fax service.

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You have two options when using a scan and fax service: software or no software. With the software option, you download a program onto your phone that compresses and optimizes your image files before sending them to the Internet fax service. If you don't use the software, then you send the raw image files directly to the scan and fax service via e-mail or MMS.

The advantage of using the software method is that the file is compressed before sending it over your cellular data network. If you pay by the megabyte for data transfers, then it'll be considerably cheaper to send a compressed file. Even if you pay for unlimited data transfers, a smaller file is easier on a slow mobile Internet connection.

To download the software, you can either download it onto your computer or directly onto your cell phone. To download it onto your computer, visit the Web site of the service you want to use. Once downloaded, you can connect to your cell phone using a USB cable and follow the instructions to transfer the software to your phone. To download the program directly to your cell phone, use your phone's Web browser to visit the special version of the service's Web site.

We're going to talk more about how each scan and fax service works in a minute. Right now, let's go over some tips for making the highest quality scans with a camera phone.

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To successfully scan and fax with a cell phone, you need to know the best way to photograph different types of documents. Here are tips for taking pictures with a camera phone:

• Check your camera phone settings. If possible, select the 'macro' or 'document' mode. Also make sure that the camera's autofocus setting is on. Macro/document mode is particularly important for scanning smaller documents like letter-size pieces of paper or business cards.
• If you don't have macro/document mode, make sure the camera is set to its highest resolution. This'll generate the largest image.
• Turn off your flash. Flashes tend to reflect harshly off of white surfaces like paper. The result is a washed-out image.
• Find the best lighting. Since you can't use a flash, the document needs to have ample natural light. Position the document near a window or directly under a lamp.
• Try to fill the camera frame with as much of the document as possible. If you're photographing a business card, you'll need to get in nice and close so that the card fills almost the entire screen.
• For letter-size pieces of paper and business cards, you may want to rotate your camera 90 degrees so that the document fills even more of the screen.
• Hold the camera phone with both hands to keep it steady. Slight movements can produce a blurry image, especially in low-light situations.

If you're unsure about the quality of your cell phone's camera, go to checkmycameraphone.com. A scan-and-fax service called scanR set up this site to rank the quality of most current camera phones on a scale of 100. If you can't find your particular model, you can run a test yourself:

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1. Take a photo of this page.
2. Send your pic to scanR via e-mail or MMS.
3. Log into the scanR site to see the quality rating of your image.

Now let's talk specifically about how to use the two most popular scan and fax services, Comombo and scanR.

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The two most popular scan and fax services are Comombo and scanR. They both operate under the same basic idea: taking a photo of a document with a camera phone, compressing it with software and sharing it via e-mail or fax or both.

Let's talk about Comombo first. Comombo requires that you first download its software. You can either do this directly to your phone or to your PC first. The Comombo software is free and turns your camera phone into a scanner. You can use the free software, or freeware, to photograph documents and turn those photos into optimized, compressed PDF files.

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Comombo lets you send 10 fax pages for free, but after that you have to pay for the Internet faxing service. Comombo uses a prepaid system that doesn't require a monthly contract. The current price is ten euros (U.S. $14.40) for 50 fax pages to just about anywhere in the world. Under the Comombo pricing system, however, one fax page doesn't always equal one fax page. If you send a fax to Brazil, for example, one fax page is charged as two pages. And if you send a fax to Afghanistan, one page is charged as four.

Here's how you use Comombo to scan and fax a document with your camera phone:

1. Take a picture of the document you want to scan, remembering the camera phone tips from the previous page.
2. Open the Comombo software and select the picture you want to fax.
3. The software then compresses the image file down to 20 to 80 KB, optimizing the image for maximum clarity.
4. Enter the e-mail address and/or fax numbers of the people with whom you want to share the document. The software also has a built-in address book.
5. Check the fax status from your phone.

The scanR service is very similar to Comombo, except that you can use it without software if you choose. ScanR's software package is called scanR Mobile and works very much like the Comombo software. If you want to bypass the software, here's how it works:

1. Take a photo of the document you want to scan or fax with your camera phone.
2. E-mail or MMS the photo to one of three different scanR addresses: one for documents, one for whiteboards and one for business cards.
3. ScanR compresses and optimizes the image, creating a PDF. The PDF can either be e-mailed back to you or saved on the scanR Web site.
4. To fax the document, include the fax number of the recipient in your original message or go to the scanR Web site and choose which PDF you want to fax.
5. The same goes for e-mail. Include the e-mail address of the recipient in the original message to scanR or send it later through the scanR Web site.

The scanR billing system is a little different than Comombo. The software and basic scanning service is free. To send more than five faxes a month, you have to sign up for a scanR Pro account. For $2.99 a month, you can send unlimited faxes to over 200 countries.

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These services are sure to change in the future as new improvements are continuously being made to phones.

For more information on camera phones and related topics, check out the links on the next page.

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Radio technology will soon do another consolidating act and remove an apparently extraneous 'device' from your pocket: Your wallet. Or at least your credit card. If you're the type who never leaves home without your cell phone, you'll automatically have a credit card or debit card with you wherever you go thanks to an improvement on standard RFID technology called near-field communication, or NFC.

The NFC mobile-payment application is currently in trials in the United States, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and a few other countries, with transportation ticketing as a primary use (think SpeedPass on a cell phone). The idea is that you just touch your phone to an NFC reader (or bring it to within a few centimeters), and it acts just like the credit card or debit card you use right now. A mobile-payment-enabled phone is associated with a bank or credit-card company just like it's associated with a phone-service provider. The technology is similar to the RFID (radio frequency identification) transmitters used in contactless credit cards (see How Blink Technology Works), except that NFC chips allow for two-way communication instead of only one way, which is supposed to make for a more secure payment method.

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The technology behind NFC, like RFID, uses inductive coupling to transfer data. Induction occurs when a wire (or any other conductor of electricity) passes through a magnetic field, generating an electric current in the wire. It's similar to the principal of electromagnetism -- that passing an electric current through a coil of wire will generate a magnetic field -- only in reverse. An NFC chip has a coil of wire built into it, much like an RFID chip. When an NFC-equipped cell phone gets to within a few centimeters of an NFC-equipped payment station, which is generating a magnetic field and also has a coil of wire inside, an electric current jumps between the two coils of wire, signaling The pay station will then say, for instance, 'Okay, I'll wait,' and the devices will keep the connection open until the phone approves the transaction and sends the data.

Nokia revealed the first fully integrated NFC phone, the Nokia 6131 NFC, at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. At CES, Nokia was in a perfect position to show off what some in the industry consider to be the myriad other applications for an NFC phone -- like sucking data off an NFC-equipped business card and downloading data from an NFC-equipped kiosk. The NFC chip is embedded underneath the cover of the phone. According to the NFC forum, you could also use an NFC phone to unlock the door to your house and synch your phone calendar with your PC calendar.

The 6131 NFC is in trials in New York City as of January 2007. Nokia says it should available to consumers by March. No word yet on which stores or transportation venues will be equipped with the sta­ndardized NFC readers.

If you're interested in where cell phone technology is headed, then click here to read about the future of smartphones.

For more information on mobile phones as payment methods and other NFC applications, check out the next page.­

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More Great Links

Card Scanning Mobile Phones & Portable Devices Driver Windows 7

• PC Magazine: Nokia Intros NFC Phone That Doubles As Credit Card - Jan. 7, 2007
• CNET News.com: Sony, NXP to develop short-range wireless chip - Nov. 20, 2006

Sources

Card Scanning Mobile Phones & Portable Devices Driver

• “Nokia 6131 NFC phone taps into mobile payment, ticketing and local sharing.” Nokia Press Release. Jan. 08, 2007
• Nokia Intros NFC Phone That Doubles As Credit Card.” PC Magazine. Jan. 7, 2007.
• ”Sony, NXP to develop short-range wireless chip.” CNET News.com. Nov. 20, 2006.
• ”Visa, Nokia turn cell phones into credit cards.” CNET News.com. Jan. 10, 2007.