OS X: Delicious Library

Another cool application for us Apple-fans: Have you ever loaned a book or DVD or an expensive gadget to a friend, and forgotten which friend? And then bought another? With Delicious Library you just drag any item onto any friend from your Address Book, and it’ll remember the loan for you — and even put an entry in iCal reminding you when it’s due.

Or maybe you have something lying around you don’t use, like an out-of-print book, that’s worth serious bucks and you don’t know it? Because with Delicious Library 2 you always know the current value of your things, and can put your used items up for sale with three clicks. Or maybe you just want to publish your library to the web and share it with your friends.

It may be the most anticipated app of the year, and it is finally here. Delicious Library 2 catalogs all your stuff: even more than just your books, movies, and CDs. You can also catalog just about anything with a barcode on it, including tools, toys, software, gadgets, and apparel.

Delicious Library allows you to import, browse, and share all your books, movies, music and video games with Delicious Library.

A scan of a barcode is all Delicious Library needs to add an item to your digital shelves, downloading tons of info from the internet like the author, release date, current value, description, and even a high-resolution picture of the cover. Import your entire library using the full-speed iSight video barcode scanner. Once you have all of your items in your Mac, you can browse though your digital shelves, check stuff out to friends using Apple’s built-in Address Book and calendar, and find new items to read, watch, and play using Library’s recommendations.

Quickly importing your stuff into Delicious Library doesn’t require a dedicated barcode scanner – you can use any QuickTime®-supported digital video camera, like your Apple iSight. Just hold the barcode on the back of any book, movie, CD, or video game in front of the camera and your item magically shows up on your digital shelf seconds later.

Using the same technology found in $800 industrial-strength CCD barcode scanners, Delicious Library reads every single frame of digital video; seeking out, targeting, and instantly decoding any visible barcodes. This results in a seamless process of scanning that lets you import about 750 items an hour (assuming you can move your arms that fast). At that rate the staff of the new downtown Seattle Central Library could work together to import all of their 1.4 million books into Delicious Library in just over 5 hours.

Not believing it’s capabilities, I tried it on my PS3 collection and was able to scan in 18 PS3 titles short of a minute. While DL2 goes off in the background to fetch the relevant information, you can continue scanning. Once DL2 finds an item it will actually verbally provide details such as “Army of Two by Electronic Arts” – awesome.