An image forming apparatus includes a state management unit that shifts an authentication state from a non-login state to a login state, a storage unit that stores setting information, and a data management unit that, in a case where a free space of the storage unit is less than a threshold value, deletes the setting information stored in the storage unit at a timing of shifting from the non-login state to the login state and secure a free space greater than or equal to the threshold value in the storage unit.

A method of controlling an image reproduction system, wherein a process duration is estimated on the basis of a measured time (D) for the processing of a number (n) of pages that have been processed already, the method comprising storing a digital table which contains a number of pre-defined job types as well as a respective correction factor (A4) for each job type; when a job is received (S1), assigning (S2) a job type to the received job; calculating (S3) a first estimate (D1) for a time needed for processing at least a specified collection of pages from the job; calculating (S4) a second estimate (D2) by multiplying the first estimate (D1) with the correction factor (A4); when said specified collection of pages has been processed, calculating a deviation of the first estimate (D1), and updating (S9) the correction factor (A4); and storing the updated correction factor.

A scanner includes a transport mechanism that continuously transports a plurality of documents, a sensor, a control unit that performs correction of a read image which the sensor reads by using a correction value, a calculation unit that calculates the correction value based on a result from which the sensor reads a reference region between the documents, and a storage unit that sequentially stores the correction value in any of a plurality of storage regions, in which the control unit switches the storage region where the correction value used for the correction is read out to the storage region where the calculated correction value is stored, if storing of the calculated correction value is completed.

A malfunction determining apparatus for determining a malfunction of a target apparatus includes a receiver that receives, from a target apparatus, a plurality of items of physical data having frequency bands that are different from each other and circuitry that analyzes the received physical data to identify, for each of the operating modes, at least one of the physical data items having a specific feature from among the plurality of items of physical data that are received from the target apparatus, stores in a memory, for each of the operating modes, information indicating at least one sensor of the multiple sensors that has output the at least one of the physical data item that is identified, and determines abnormality of the target apparatus operating in a specific operating mode, using only the physical data output from the at least one sensor stored in the memory for the specific operating mode.

An information processing system includes a first and second information processing systems respectively including first and second apparatuses, and a third information processing system storing history information of the first apparatus and implementing analyzing the history information to acquire a degree of influence for an item included in the history information corresponding to a fault in the first apparatus, and generating a fault prediction logic of predicting a fault in the first apparatus using the item having a relatively high degree of influence and a value of a case where the fault occurs in the first apparatus based on a result of the analysis, and building the generated fault prediction logic into the first and second apparatuses, the first and second information processing system monitoring the history information, and detecting a state of matching a content of the built-in fault prediction logic.

A method for detecting printing defects includes, with a physical computing system, creating a matched reference image from a digital image, colors of said matched reference image being closer matched to a scanned image of said digital image. The method further includes, with said physical computing system, determining a color difference between corresponding points on said matched reference image and said scanned image; and with said physical computing system, identifying points that have said color distance greater than a predefined threshold as potential defects.

An image forming apparatus, guide providing method thereof, cloud server and error analyzing method thereof are provided. The image forming apparatus may include a scanner configured to scan a script and generate a scan image, a communicator configured to communicate with a cloud server, a display configured display a screen, and a processor configured to control the communicator to transmit the generated scan image to a cloud server, and in response to receiving an error solution guide of the scan image from the cloud server, control the display to display the received error solution guide.

A method of operating a server computer serving a group of scanners; wherein the scanners are registered in a database with a respective indication of reservation status. The method includes receiving, at the server computer, a request for a scanning operation from a user's electronic device; wherein the request includes a user identifier and a scanner identifier; granting a reservation of the selected scanner upon reception of the request for a scanning operation, wherein the reservation lapses unless the request is confirmed within a predefined time period; and receiving, from the selected scanner, a predefined user generated event. Upon reception of the predefined user generated event within the predefined time period: maintaining the reservation until a scanning operation is terminated or cancelled, and transmitting any electronic reproduction resulting from the selected scanning operation performed at the selected scanner to the user identified by the user identifier.

An information processing apparatus includes a reading unit, an edge extraction unit, a feature point search unit, a document area size calculation unit, a user operation unit, and a multi-feed determination unit. The reading unit optically reads a document to generate image data. The edge extraction unit extracts an edge of the document from the image data. The feature point search unit searches edge data of the edge extracted by the edge extraction unit for a feature point. The document area size calculation unit calculates a document area size from the feature point found by the feature point search unit. The user operation unit is used by a user to specify a document size. The multi-feed determination unit compares the document area size calculated by the document area size calculation unit with the user-specified document size so as to determine whether multi-feed of the document has occurred.

An image inspection system includes a processor and an inspection execution unit that performs an image inspection of a printed matter, in which the processor is configured to acquire first position information that is information on a position of the image inspection set in image data and to acquire second position information that is information on positions of the respective image data in data for printing in which the plural image data are arranged, and the inspection execution unit performs the image inspection of a printed matter on which the data for printing are printed using the first position information and the second position information.