Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Physical World Hyperlinks Coming Soon!

New barcodes on signs, posters and the like are expanding the mobile web.
ScanBuy
From Sydney Morinng Herald Physical World Hyperlinks Coming Soon!

The world of the so-called 2D barcode is nearly upon us. After several false dawns, hyperlinks for the physical world are becoming a reality, thanks to mobiles with higher resolution cameras and the emergence of 3G high-speed connectivity.

ScanBuy, a New York provider of technology capturing 2D barcodes, has signed a deal with Nokia to embed its software in the mobile maker's S60 and S40 models - primarily in China, a country with 500 million mobile-phone users. And global packaging company DuPont is offering to print the codes onto its customers' products using ScanBuy's technology.

These more sophisticated versions of traditional barcodes (universal product codes) used in retailing can be scanned by cameraphones and converted into text, images or video. They can simply contain information - up to 1MB in some cases - or act as web links, making the tricky process of surfing the net via mobile as easy as "point and click".

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