Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR)
A character recognition system using a special ink and characters which can be magnetised and read automatically with much greater accuracy compared to human reading or other optical character recognition systems. MICR is used almost exclusively in the banking industry where it is used to print details on cheques to enable automatic processing.
Optical-character Recognition (OCR)
Optical character recognition or OCR refers to the branch of computer science that involves reading text from paper and translating the images into a form that the computer can manipulate. An OCR enables you to take a book or a magazine article, feed it directly into an electronic computer file, and then edit the file using a word processor.
Optical-mark Recognition (OMR)
Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) is the technology of electronically extracting intended data from marked fields, such as check boxes and fill-in fields, on printed forms. It is generally distinguished from OCR and by the fact that a recognition engine is not required. This requires the image to have a high contrast and an easily recognizable or irrelevant shape. OMR technology scans a printed form and reads predefined positions and records where marks are made on the form. This technology is useful for applications in which large numbers of hand-filled forms need to be processed quickly.
Dot Matrix Printer
Dot Matrix refers to the way the printer creates characters or images on paper. This is done by several tiny pins, aligned in a column, striking an ink ribbon positioned between the pins and the paper, creating dots on the paper. Characters are composed of patterns of these dots by moving the print head laterally across the page in very small increments.
Plotters
A device that draws pictures on paper based on commands from a computer. Plotters differ from printers in that they draw lines using a pen. As a result, they can produce continuous lines, but printers can only simulate lines by printing a closely spaced series of dots. Multicolor plotters use different-coloured pens to draw different colors.
Photo Printer
A color printer optimized to reproduce ‘photograph quality’ prints on special paper. Such printers, often low cost, may incorporate a reader to accept data direct from one or more of the small memory cards used in digital cameras without requiring a computer to interpret the image data.
Portable Printer
The portable printer is a portable printer designed and configured to be lightweight to facilitate being transported by a user. The dimensions of the printer housing are similar to, or slightly larger than, a conventional laptop computer to accommodate the placement of a laptop computer on the portable printer.
Fax Machine
Fax Machine or short for facsimile machine, is a device that can send or receive pictures and text over a telephone line. Fax machines work by digitizing an image by dividing it into a grid of dots. Each dot is either on or off depending on the color either it's black or white. Electronically, each dot is represented by a bit that has a value of either 0 or 1. 0 is off and 1 is on. In this way, the fax machine translates a picture into a series of zeros and ones that can be transmitted like normal computer data. On the receivers side, a fax machine reads the incoming data, translates the zeros and ones back into dots, and reprints the picture.
Multifunctional Devices
Multifunctional Devices are a multiple devices such as copying, texting, printing and faxing put into one and is more efficient and neat. It is to deal with important data collation and delivery functions in today's dynamic office environment. It is used for office and business requirements.
Internet Telephones
A category of hardware and software that enables people to use the Internet as the transmission medium for telephone calls. For users who have free, or fixed-price Internet access, Internet telephones software essentially provides free telephone calls anywhere in the world. However, Internet telephones does not offer the same quality of telephone service as direct telephone connections.
Telephony
Telephony is the technology associated with the electronic transmission of voice, fax, or other information between distant parties using systems historically associated with the telephone, a handheld device containing both a speaker or transmitter and a receiver. With the arrival of computers and the transmittal of digital information over telephone systems and the use of radio to transmit telephone signals, the distinction between telephony and telecommunication has become difficult to make.
