What is TWAIN?

Definition: TWAIN is a software protocol that goes between your computer and your camera, scanner, or whatever imaging device you're using. It helps ensure that your computer can understand and display the data being sent by the imaging device. It's not an acronym, but, according to the TWAIN Working Group, was taken from "and never the twain shall meet," from Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Ballad of East and West." The Working group notes the word reflected "the difficulty, at the time, of connecting scanners and personal computers."