JamesJJ's blog: /IT

Sun, 26 Jul 2009

Remembering and typing...

I noticed an article "Barcodes are the next big IT thing" as I was reading the paper - "the next big IT thing" doesn't particularly inspire (isn't everything), but on this occasion I think the idea might have a hope.

The article, originally from The Guardian describes the use of a 2D barcode as a device readable web link or phone number. Nearly everyone in the UK has a mobile phone with a camera - you don't need to program in a phone number or URL again, just point your phone's camera at the business card / poster / TV screen / web page and your phone picks up the number or URL and saves it to your address book or opens the web link - lovely! There are so many times I've taken a quick snap of a poster or similar, just to record the phone number, or web address at the bottom. The 2D barcode link allows you to capture the link information you need in a useful format.

Apparently, these 2D barcode links have become very popular in Japan. The reason for this seems two-fold. Firstly Japanese mobile phones (and maybe Japanese users) are much more Internet capable than those available in the UK, so people really use their phones for web browsing more. Secondly, the phone manufacturers seem to have been able to agree on a barcode standard and pre-load phones with the necessary software. These latter points may be the show stoppers in the European market.

I loaded up my Nokia E65 with the free software from get.beetagg.com, created a few 'QR' 2D barcodes from quickqr.com and tried it out. It worked perfectly every time I pointed the phone at the QR. Interested? Get the software yourself, and see what you think:

[Posted in “/IT”, 2009-07-26 13:30, perma-link]

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