Logitech Announces 24-Bit Color Hand-Held Scanner 

ScanMan Color Features Virtual Page Scanning with Logitech AutoStitch,
Total System Calibration, Feature-Rich Image Editing Software; Offers
TWAIN Compliancy, Microsoft OLE Server Capability 

NEW YORK CITY -- June 23,1992 -- Logitech Inc., international market leader
in imaging solutions and pointing devices for personal computers,
introduces ScanMan Color, a 24-bit color hand-held scanner for the
Microsoft Windows environment. The product, announced at a press
conference in New York City, lists for $699 and will be available through
Logitech dealers and distributors in September.

ScanMan Color's hardware captures up to 16.8 million colors and features a
proprietary white fluorescent light that permits consistent scanning
brightness without a warm-up period. All other hand-held units currently
available on the market require warm-up periods ranging between 30 seconds
and two minutes and may need to be turned off periodically as they
continue to heat. The Logitech white light "levels out" immediately and
remains consistent.

With its 24-bit capacity, ScanMan Color is able to capture true 256
gray-scale data on-the-fly, in addition to its 16.8 million colors,
without the need to convert color information to gray-scale - a process
common to all 12- and 18-bit models.

ScanMan Color is bundled with FotoTouch Color Image Editing Software, a
significantly expanded version of Logitech's award-winning FotoTouch
application. A key component of FotoTouch is Logitech's "AutoStitch"
capability, a feature which allows users to merge multiple scans, without
manual interaction. The software automatically "deskews" each scan,
locates matching features, extrapolates to fill in missing pixels, and
calibrates color across the entire finished image.

FotoTouch Color offers a rich variety of editing tools, located in a
unique, customizable "toolbox & drawer" structure. An interactive
context-sensitive graphical help system lets users browse through a series
of graphics screens and icons to locate specific help topics. To create
this unique help interface, Logitech used the text/graphics capabilities
in the Windows 3.1 help engine, which is bundled with the software for
accessibility by Windows 3.0 users.

Additional software features include slider controls for adjusting
brightness, contrast, and tonality; color balance, transparency effects;
enhanced Super VGA display capabilities; and a rich variety of editing
tools.

In the color imaging environment, maintaining consistency of color among
the original image, monitor-displayed image, and finished output is
difficult. To answer this challenge and ensure color consistency, Logitech
has added "total system calibration" to FotoTouch color. Users can
calibrate monitor colors by matching a perfect black-and-white
checkerboard pattern with computer-rendered gray. For printer calibration,
FotoTouch Color sends a graded color strip to the printer; this printed
strip is then scanned back into FotoTouch for comparison with the original
data. A one-time adjustment is made for each printer.

ScanMan Color adheres to the TWAIN protocol, an API (application program
interface) developed jointly by Aldus, Caere, Hewlett-Packard, Kodak, and
Logitech, and reviewed and/or endorsed by more than 200 hardware vendors
and software developers. In addition, FotoTouch Color functions as a
Microsoft OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) server. This allows the use
of color images in any application that supports OLE.

Logitech expects strong demand for ScanMan Color in the areas of corporate
presentations, professional design work, word-processed and desktop
published documents, and image databases. "At this price point, ScanMan
Color represents an affordable yet extremely powerful tool for individual
desktops," says Molly Carlson, Logitech product marketing manager. "We're
introducing the product under very favorable market conditions: Associated
peripherals, such as color printers, are declining in price; memory is
less expensive; industry standards such as TWAIN and OLE are leveraging
developer efforts and providing easy ways to incorporate graphics into a
wide variety of documents; and applications supporting color are
proliferating."

The hand-held scanner market is expected to show continuing strong growth
over the next several years, according to Massachusetts-based BIS
Strategic Decisions, which predicts that hand-held units will outnumber
flatbed models by a factor of four-to-one by 1993. Total hand-held units
will experience a 27 percent CAGR (compound annual growth rate) through
1996, while hand-held units for the Windows environment will grow at a 50
percent CAGR during the same period.

Minimal system requirements for ScanMan Color include an IBM AT or
compatible with a 386SX processor or above, Microsoft Windows 3.0 or 3.1,
four megabytes of RAM, five megabytes of free disk space, one open 16-bit
AT slot, a graphics card (VGA minimum, 256-color SVGA or above
recommended), and a mouse.

Logitech designs, manufactures, and markets a variety of input and pointing
devices and related software applications for both IBM and Macintosh
platforms. Logitech International, the financial holding company for the
Logitech Group, is traded publicly in Switzerland on the Zurich and Geneva
exchanges. With operational headquarters in Fremont, Calif., the group
maintains manufacturing facilities in Fremont; Hsinchu, Taiwan; and Cork,
Ireland; and offices in major cities in the U.S., Europe, and the Far
East.

Logiteth Inc., 6505 Koiser Drive Fremont, CA 94555 
Phone: 510.795.8500   Fax: 510.792.8901

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