April 1, 2007
New Bar Codes Can Talk With Your Cellphone
The New York Times has a lengthy article on barcodes read by cameraphones, allowing users to connect everyday objects with the Internet - and the many ways this technology has been used in Japan for years now. And how it's (slowly) starting to appear in the US, such as on several state drivers’ licenses or on some mailing labels, mostly for commercial use.
"In their new incarnation, cellphones become a sort of digital remote control, as one CBS executive put it. With a wave, the phone can read encoded information on everyday objects and translate that into videos, pictures or text files on its screen.
... The most promising way to link cellphones with physical objects is a new generation of bar codes: square-shaped mosaics of black and white boxes that can hold much more information than traditional bar codes. The cameras on cellphones scan the codes, and then the codes are translated into videos, music or text on the phone screens.
... In Japan, some highway billboards have codes large enough for passing motorists to read them with their phones. Hospitals put them on prescriptions, allowing pharmacies to instantly scan the medical information rather than read it. Supermarkets stick them on meat and egg packaging to give expiration dates and even the names of the farmers who produced them.
One of the most popular uses in Japan has been paperless airline tickets. About 10 percent of the people who take domestic flights of All Nippon Airways now use the codes on their cellphones instead of printed tickets."
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