Barcode Creates A Consumer Report Wikipedia

This is a great idea. Instead of using the physical world connection for a one dimension application like price comparison, a barcode can be linked to a product review search engine.

Is this a Consumer report Wikipedia?
From HeraldWet Toshiba service could be a boon from consumers



Checking out the Internet buzz about a DVD, book or candy while on the go is soon to become as easy as taking a snapshot of the bar code on the product.

Toshiba Corp., a Japanese electronics company that makes DVD players, laptops and nuclear power plants, has developed mobile-phone technology that searches for product reviews on up to 100 Web journals, or blogs, in 10 seconds.

In my opinion, blogs will be the new Consumer Reports. Information can be delivered faster and from numerous sources.

Just use the phone's digital camera to snap a photo of the bar code of a product you're thinking about buying.

The technology can tell if the blog chatter is positive or negative and tallies the count to show if a product is getting rave reviews or being trashed by consumers. That's useful if you're in a store about to buy an item.

The bar-code information is sent wirelessly to a Toshiba server, which gathers data on blogs from the Internet and analyzes them, and then sends a reply back to the cell phone.

Just a guess, but the server probably resolves the barcode and determines the product info. The server then does a search on blogs for that specific product with a value added rating.