I get that it's open source provided you use codium not code but I still find that interesting

  • Probably. I have no doubt that Lens (the aforementioned tool I used to use) does. In the career I had, I had to give up the telemetry, because I had to use Lens. There is literally no practical alternative. Sometimes, you just have to pay that cost. Heck, I'd have bought a telemetry-free alternative from someone else if it worked as well, and if anyone offered one. Which they don't.

    I'm beating that dead horse because it baffles me everytime I think about it that, in a veritable app ocean of calculator, chat, and everything else, Lens is apparently unique.

    • Fisch@lemmy.ml
      ·
      1 year ago

      Is Lens just an app to scan documents using only your phone camera or does it something else that makes it so useful? I sometimes need to scan stuff like that too but haven't find something good that's open source.

      • Lens is, among other things, a camera app that recognizes whiteboards, auto-crops to the whiteboard, and auto-corrects the perspective. It can also clean the image, removing smudges and dry-erase dirt, and do basic color adjustment and B/W conversion. It's designed specifically for whiteboards, but works on documents. And then, when the image is cleaned, it makes sharing via email directly from the app particularly easy - sure, it only removes 2 or 3 clicks, but it does streamline the process.

        It's pretty amazing at what it does. When you're in a tight space and have to take a picture of a whiteboard at some absurdly acute angle, it works miracles. I've never had it not impress a coworker who's never seen it do its thing.

        I don't know who MS acquired to get it, but it's simply a fantastic program with no competition.

        • Fisch@lemmy.ml
          ·
          1 year ago

          I don't like using proprietary software but this does sound really useful. In school I take my notes on a laptop but oftentimes I need to take pictures of sheets or the whiteboard to put it in my notes, which always looks really bad. I might check this out for that purpose. I tried to find something open source that could do this but haven't found anything either.