11. A handheld optical scanner, comprising: an optical imaging component adapted to capture images of text from rendered documents at a first time, convert at least some of the captured images to textual representations at a second time, and compress or delete any converted captured images at a third time; a memory component coupled to the optical imaging component; a universal serial bus port coupled to the memory component; a processor coupled to the memory component; and a battery coupled to the optical imaging component, the memory component, the universal serial bus port, and the processor; wherein the memory component is adapted to receive data from the universal serial bus port, to store data received via the universal serial bus port, and to transmit data via the universal serial bus port to another device, and wherein the memory component is further adapted to receive data derived from images captured by the optical imaging component and store the data derived from images captured the optical imaging component.
16. The handheld optical scanner of claim 11 , wherein the memory component incorporates a flash memory component.