I was asked recently to review the Android application WorldCard Mobile, which enables you to quickly convert your business cards into contacts.

On opening the application, you get a simple choice of two main options. Either selecting an existing photo from your SD card, or taking a photo using the phone’s camera. I feel the space is a little wasted here and could have some tips, or other advice on the home screen. However, the interface is generally slick, and very easy to use.

Selecting the camera icon will give you a simple camera mode where you can take a photo of your business card or other printed contact information. The application the tries to create contact details from the photo using OCR techniques. In the most part it did a pretty good job of correctly identifying the separate phone numbers, address details, email addresses and name information. I tried a few different cards and it was around 98% accurate. In the 2% of times where it doesn’t get it bang on you can always go in and edit the information.

Once you are happy, then simply tapping ‘Export’ will save that contact to your list.

There are a few features that would take this application forward in my opinion:

• The ability to scan handwriting. On testing myself this didn’t seem to work, so would be good for times when people quickly scribble down their contact details when they don’t have a business card.
• Being able to voice input your contact details
• Being able to merge the details into an existing contact on your phone.

WorldCard Mobile is available now on the Android Market.