Scan
Frame the card or note with your camera. One clear photo is all it takes.
馃悎 Iris
Operation: Never Lose Contact
Point your phone at a business card. vCGE reads it and turns it into a phone contact that you can save or share. It all happens on your phone, with no account and no cloud.
Public beta is live
How it works
Four steps from a scrap of paper to your phone book
Each step has its own pilot on Team vCGE. They pass the contact along like a relay baton, and nobody keeps a copy.
Read
vCGE finds the words on the page, then sorts them into name, phone, email, company and address.
馃 Glyph馃悪 Pidge
Make a contact
Check the details, fix anything, and get a tidy contact card with a QR code on the back.
馃 Flipside馃 Checkers
Send
Save it to your phone's contacts or pass it to your phone's own share button. vCGE itself never goes online.
馃 Airlock馃 Ghost
vCGE reads printed text today. Handwriting reading is planned for a later version.
See the app
This is what the beta looks like today
Real screens from the public beta, in the Herd theme. Each step has its pilot's name at the top, so you always know who is helping.
The goal
Nobody should lose a person because they lost a piece of paper
Cards get washed with your jeans. Numbers on napkins fade. vCGE exists so the people you meet make it into your phone the same day, and so their details stay private while they do.
Business cardsOther printed textHandwriting, in a later version
Works without internet
The reading happens on your phone. Nothing is uploaded to a server to be scanned. 馃悽 Shutout keeps the door shut.
Nothing kept behind
Contacts live only in the app's memory and are never saved. The app locks after 2 minutes idle and wipes everything 7 minutes later (or 10 or 15, your pick). 馃 Ghost wipes the slate clean.
You choose where it goes
No account, no ads and no trackers. The contact goes only where you send it. 馃 Airlock opens that one door on your say-so.
Meet Team vCGE
Nine pilots, one job each
Every part of the app has a pilot. They are soft, round, slightly dramatic animals with a team color and a square belt buckle carrying their call sign. Full character art is on the way.
Cornerstone the Elephant
PM-vCGE-00 路 Gold
The steady architect who keeps every part in line.
A surveyor who left a note on the site office door: "Good parts. No floor. Call me." She recruited the whole team, and her ears are her signal flags.
Shutout the Box Turtle
MOD01 路 Green
The wall that keeps your data in.
An ex-goalie who signs every shift log "Shell's shut."
Ghost the Raccoon
MOD02 路 Indigo
Guards the Vault, then gives it all back.
"Keeping it forever is how it gets stolen."
Iris the Lynx
MOD03 路 Teal
Takes the shot with the camera.
Never misses a shot, and never keeps one.
Glyph the Owl
MOD04 路 Navy
Reads every word on the page.
The shortest pilot, and the one with the worst font jokes.
Pidge the Octopus
MOD05 路 Burgundy
Files each line in the right slot.
Sorts with all eight arms and keeps one pigeonhole labeled "Unknown."
Flipside the Chameleon
MOD06 路 Coral
Paints your finished contact card.
A sign painter and a showman. Every card has a front and a flip side.
Checkers the Zebra
MOD07 路 White
Turns the card into a QR code.
A tile-setter's kid who talks fast and thinks in squares.
Airlock the Falcon
MOD08 路 Orange
Launches the contact where you send it.
The team's one true deadpan. The eye patch is a style choice.
When things get serious, all nine combine into one giant robot. Pidge becomes the hands, because Pidge is the part of the team that picks things up and puts them where they belong.
The villain
Bad Memory
A creeping gray fog that makes names and numbers drift away the moment you stop paying attention.
Its sneakiest trick is leaking. It lets little pieces of people's lives slip out the door into places they should never go. Team vCGE fights it with speed and with privacy: get the contact saved fast, and let nothing leak on the way.
We never make fun of forgetting. The fog is the enemy, never the people it touches.
Fun facts
Things you learn hanging around the crew
8
Arms on Pidge. Each vest pocket is stitched NAME, TITLE, CO., TEL, MAIL, WEB, ADDR and NOTE.
1
Condition. Most pilots joined on "one condition" or "one question." Ask Cornerstone about it.
4
Blood types on the team. A, O, B and AB, picked the way Japanese character guides do, for personality.
0
Copies kept. Iris burned her negatives. Ghost gives everything back. The whole crew works this way.
9
Team colors. One each, like a hero squad, from Cornerstone's gold to Airlock's signal orange.
1st
Pilot hired: Shutout. She asked "What are we protecting?" before "What do I get to blast?"
How vCGE grew
- Born. vCGE starts as a project between raven575 and Gemini.
- First working app. The code moves to GitHub and goes from a half-working import to a working app the same day.
- The deck. The app becomes a swipeable deck of postcards, one per step, each with its own pilot.
- The iPad video. A real test video catches a label sitting right on top of the close button. Fixed the next day.
- The cute pass. Iris peeks over the camera, Glyph reads the card, Ghost guards the lock screen, and a Plain edition keeps it all quiet for anyone who prefers that.
- Public beta. Free to try, right now. Next up: easier accessibility.
Questions
Good to know
What does vCGE stand for?
vCard Generator Engine. A vCard is the standard contact file every phone understands.
Does it need the internet?
No. vCGE never goes online. Scanning, reading and making the contact all happen on your phone.
Do you store my contacts?
No. There is no account and no server. Contacts stay in the app's memory only, and the only thing it keeps on your phone is your settings.
Which phones has it been tested on?
Real devices: a Samsung Galaxy Fold (Chrome and other Android browsers), Windows 10 (Chrome, LibreWolf), Windows 11 (Chrome) and Ubuntu (Firefox). Every build also runs automated tests in Chromium, Firefox, WebKit (the Safari engine), Chrome and Edge, plus iPhone 15 and Galaxy S24 screen sizes. Those are emulated, not real phones. It has not been tested on a real iPhone yet.
What does it cost?
Nothing. vCGE is free and open source, with no paid features, no ads and no paywalls.
Public beta
The beta is live. Come help us fight the fog.
vCGE is free to try right now, in your browser. Try it on real cards and tell us what it gets wrong.
Coming soon: easier accessibility
- A color-vision picker, so colors work for your eyes.
- Accessibility options that are easier to find and use.
- A less crowded Settings page.
Feedback
Tell us what it got wrong
A misread name or a phone number in the wrong field helps us most. Soon you'll be able to write it here, and it will go to the vCGE team by email.
The beta is out now, so please try it and note anything it misreads.
The feedback form is coming soon. Check back here.