laserscan You may recall how Data the android read books in Star Trek: The Next Generation, or the robot Johnny Five in Short Circuit—by riffling through the pages and absorbing the information in the time it took to go from the front to back cover. Now researchers in Tokyo have come up with a system that can scan paper books into electronic form just as fast. The video (embedded below the jump) shows University of Tokyo assistant professor Yoshihiro Watanabe literally holding a book under the camera and riffling through the pages. The monitor captures the images...