What Do You Want From A Barcode?

Kristian Hammond, co-director of America's Northwestern University intelligent information computer lab, has some interesting concepts for intelligent machines. It gives insight as to what information will you want from a physical world hyperlink?

What application or information will YOU want when you scan a barcode with your mobile phone? The most common app is price comparison, but there will be so much more.

From The Courier Mail Mind reading

Northwestern's lab specialises in guiding computers through the mountains of information that reside on the internet and in other databases, plucking out gems a person might use.

The secret is context, letting the machine know its user's immediate interests. "Context is the Achilles' heel of information systems," adds Hammond.

A physical world connection application.

When you buy an item, it might be helpful to get reviews from others who've purchased it – say a consumer report rating relative to competing brands.

"If you want to buy medication for a cold, you could scan its barcode and the search engine could find out if it could interfere with any of the other medications you take," Hammond says.

I think there is a big opportunity the physical world connection companies are missing here, and could help with the adoption of this technology.

Invite creative thinkers to build applications around the scanning a barcode. Look at the numerous sites and applications that have been created using Google Maps.

I have plenty of ideas of what I would want a barcode to do.