The title doesn't highlight the real story. Brands and wireless carriers are making it clear what mobile bar code reading platform they prefer.
Case Western Reserve University, industry partner to debut break-through mobile technology
Beginning February 1, students, faculty and staff at Case Western Reserve's Cleveland, Ohio, campus will be participating in the nation's first trial of "2D codes"—commonly referred to as "QR Codes"—by bringing the cell phone technology to campus.
The 2D codes, first introduced on campus during fall orientation, are not unlike bar codes found on cereal boxes and other grocery store items. Only instead of revealing the price of corn flakes, the printed symbols link to mobile content in the form of pictures, music, videos, news articles and other interactive media.
Mobile Discovery, in partnership with all U.S. wireless carriers and Scanbuy, plans for 2D codes to appear at Case Western Reserve on everything from shuttle stops to campus flyers to ads and articles in the school newspaper.
If I recall correctly, Case Western initially demoed Neomedia's mobile bar codes technology first. Looks like Case Western decided to adopt ScanBuy's technology though.
7 comments:
Hi Scott,
This is great news...looks like mobile barcode reading is gaining traction in the US..Does scanlife read and decipher 2D codes like QR and datamatrix here in the US..Their website says they scan only EZ codes...
Great going Scanbuy..Kudos to Jonathan B....
I expect that they have the option of turning that feature on at will, since their reader was developed to read all codes in the foreign markets.
The questions and answers section you are referring to as well as some others, was written in 2007, and has a copy write of that date at the bottom of the page, indicating its old.
So perhaps the feature is already enabled, since they have made such progress in 2008, with the signing on of all 5 carriers, the Case/Western situation, The blackberry developments which no one adressed previously, and the sprint partnership announced earlier.
NeoMedia did, indeed, do a joint trial with Sprint at Case Western last summer, so this cannot accurately be called the "nation's first trial." Use of 2D codes for this purpose goes back quite a while, including Semacode, which did some trials several years ago. See http://semacode.com/about for some information about what they did.
In addition, "2D codes" and "QR Codes" are far from identical. "QR Codes" are a particular kind of 2D code that are popular in Japan. NeoMedia uses a flavor of 2D code known as "Aztec," while Scanbuy uses a flavor of 2D code called "EZCode". Semacode uses a flavor of 2D codes called DataMatrix.
How much is Scanbuy paying Sprint to take on Scanbuy's trial? Someone here mentioned that Scanbuy had "signed with 5 carriers". Signed what? Is Scanbuy trialing with 5 carriers. Is Scanbuy paying 5 carriers to allow Scanbuy a trial? What does "signed with 5 carriers mean"? Who is paying who or is there money involved in these "signing with 5 carriers" or "signed with 5 carriers"?
I read that Scanbuy's free software works on a few of the 5 carrier's phones, but I have not read anything about Scanbuy "signing with 5 carriers", and I would be interested to know who is getting paid in these "signings", or whatever, as I most interested in who is currently making money in the market, with all of these so called "signings".
I have not heard anything about AT&T trialing with Scanbuy. When will this take place? In fact I have not heard anything about a company trialing with Scanbuy, except Sprint.
Anonymous, or NEOM promotor,
Do you or your group have any facts to support your allegations that Scanbuy is paying for partnerships? You and your group have been stating this in another forum for months, every time a new deal is announced with Scanbuy and someone else.
And thats not what is important in the press article you responded to anyhow, but if you have some proof display it, or lay off with the unfounded claims.
Whats important is that both Sprint and Case Western, trialled Neomedia's solution earlier in the year, and then after giving Neomedia a fair chance, decided to go with Scanbuys solution. I wonder why?
As for paying for partners etc., whats the matter? Are you upset because as Scott pointed out, Neom is near broke and can't afford to pay partners to join?
Even the money from the sale of the subs, by Neomedias own admissions won't last them past April, thats only 2 months away. And with the pps where its out now, all 5 billion shares of authorized, plus some are spoken for, leaving Neomedia with zero shares left for further financing. And then there is the 4.6 million that was due 12Snap by Dec. 31st of 2007, which no settlement deal has been announced to date.
So as Scott pointed out, with no new shares to issue to raise capital, their cash running out, and an additional 4.6 million debt thats past due, that puts Neomedia on the doorstep to bankruptcy. As long as there were shares to issue they could keep selling stock to raise funds, they no longer have that option.
All they can hope for now is that Yorkville will convert all its preferred and warrants to infuse capital into the company. And if that occurs you as aa shareholder are in deep trouble. Because Yorkville has a cap limit of 5 percent of outstanding shares. So to stay under that cap, means they have to convert then sell, in order to convert more, thus causing more selling pressure on the sub penny pps.
At this point and time, there is no real solutions to Neomedias financial crisis, and there are no more subs to sell, unless Gavitec goes. And if Gavitec goes it's my belief the Neoreader they developed goes with them, leaving Neom back with its QODE. Not a good scenario.
Here is my question...
There are obviously a few divisions in the QR code to public race. I've been reading a lot on the MC2 consortium (i think) which has advocated the use of Neoreader and now from your website have learned of ScanBuy and their alliance.
So whats this mean for me, the consumer? Are these lines drawn or is there going to be a clear winner.
I ask because I see great potential in this for american advertising and would love to somehow capitalize.
Thanks
Infinity
The MC2 has not advocated using any reader. They are not an advocacy group.
Their goal is to set standards for mobile bar code technology. Not to determine what reader to use.
There are several groups working on setting standards, and the MC2 is just one of them.
It is yet to be determined which group or groups, will finally come up with a standard that becomes adopted.
Once there is a standard, then any reader that proclaims to be standards friendly, would have to comply with those standards, which to date do not exist.
So simply stating it, there will still be several readers available, and all of them may adopt to what ever standards that finally get adopted, so there would not be one right reader and one wrong reader. Any reader that met the standards, would be able to read the open standard codes, on nearly any smart device.
Thats what the standards are for, to make everyone work on the same page, so someone with a NOKIA phone has same access as someone with a Samsung phone, regardless of the carrier and the reader that person has installed on their device.
BTW the QR code has nothing to do with the NEOREADER or SCANBUY either. There are several readers available that can already read the standard QR code, and the NEOREADER and SCANLIFE in EUROPE are just two of them.
When the standards do ever get set, there will still be multiple codes and multiple readers, but all will contain some type of standard data arrangement etc., so all smart phones or pdas can read them.
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