Google OCRs scanned PDFs, makes them searchable on the web. Here's my idea...

This is cool: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/picture-of-thousand-words.html

Here's what I want out of technology like this:

We all get tons of paper through the mail, at work, and from other
transactions. A lot of it heads straight to the recycle bin or
shredder. Some of it needs to be filed away for later use. But some
of it is in a gray category-- do I need it or not? Inevitably such
documents end up in stacks or in a drawer or cabinet somewhere, and
might be impossible to locate if it ever was needed. What a waste.

So, I want a machine that is a combination scanner, search-appliance
and shredder. Then, when I received some document I am not sure if I
need or not, I could:

1) Stick it in this appliance
2) The document is scanned and OCR'd, and the text therein is indexed
3) The original is shredded
4) Now I can search all my previously scanned and shredded documents
from my computer

Wouldn't that be great?

At least until people stop insisting on providing paper documents for
everything.

P.S. A funny story is that we have signed up for all electronic
banking with one of our financial institutions. So, we periodically
get email statements. We also get a piece of mail from them every
month notifying us that we are in the "all-electronic" program and
therefore should get our statements online. We have called several
times to try to get them to quit sending mail altogether, but so far
that hasn't helped...