Keep the specification current with the state of current software and hardware while maintaining backward compatibility.Ensure image-handling software and hardware compatibility.
Objectives of the TWAIN Working Group and standard include: Improved clarity and removed ambiguity.Implemented self-certification and new mandatory features.New open-source Data Source Manager, licensed under the LGPL.Support for the Win64 version of the Windows API.
Support for the Cocoa software development API in Mac OS X.Support for barcode and patch code control.Production scanning features omitted from v1.7 of the TWAIN specification.For example, the Encyclopedia of Information Technology lists "Technology Without an Interesting Name" as the official meaning of TWAIN. None was selected, but the entry Technology Without an Interesting Name continues to haunt the standard. This led people to believe it was an acronym, and then to a contest to come up with an expansion. It was up-cased to TWAIN to make it more distinctive. The official website notes that "the word TWAIN is from Kipling's " The Ballad of East and West" - '.and never the twain shall meet.' - reflecting the difficulty, at the time, of connecting scanners and personal computers. The word TWAIN is not officially an acronym, but it is a backronym. Review of the original TWAIN Developer's Toolkit occurred from April, 1991 through January, 1992. The TWAIN group was originally launched in 1992 by several members of the imaging industry, with the intention of standardizing communication between image handling software and hardware. The design of TWAIN began in January 1991. It was designed with the help of a number of companies from the computer industry, to try to establish a unified standard connection interface between computers and imaging devices.