"Pull" Barcode Scanning Could Be Android's Killer App 296
Seor Jojoba writes "The release of T-Mobile's G1 Smartphone is shifting focus away from push-based barcode scanning, where embedded URLs send you to locations of a vendor's choosing. There is now more interest in pull-scanning, where product information is retrieved from user-specified sources. It may be that QR-Codes and other 2D barcodes will have their thunder stolen by 1970s-era linear barcodes. On the iPhone, scanning a 1D barcode is slow and unreliable. But the G1's improved optics and Android's improved access to image scans has made 1D scanning quick and useful, opening the gateway for killer apps that help people make spending decisions."
Freedom is the killer app (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's just hope Google (and her telco partners) don't fuck it up.
Re:Freedom is the killer app (Score:5, Insightful)
My bet is on the stores to screw it up. Most stores get edgy about you whipping out a camera in their store. Now use that camera to potentially lose them money and see them throw a big hissy fit.
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You must go to different stores to me.
Besides which, who cares about this bar code scanning crap? What's important is that we have an open platform with some decent market penetration that an industry can grow up on.
I care about this barcode scanning crap (Score:2)
Capturing data in this way is a killer app that justifies the whole expense of the device to me -- even if the device had no other features at all. Cordless barcode scanners are pretty spendy units.
So yeah the freedom is great. Let's not overlook that it's the freedom to share your killer app and so enhance the utility of this tool for people with similar needs to yours. There will be a lot more way cool stuff presently.
barcode scanning crap (Score:3, Interesting)
And then Google will release a standard search engine plugin which the majority of non-technical users will then simply use by default. Plus the Google one could even be pre-installed by default. Google then gets the information they origonally designed this feature for. The ability to know what products the majority of users are interested in. This is just like Google's way of profiling searches on their web site, to
Re:Freedom is the killer app (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe people who are reading a story about bar code scanning?
Re:Freedom is the killer app (Score:5, Insightful)
If a store trys to stop me whipping a camera out to compare prices ill just not shop there. If they dont stop me theres just a possibility I may not shop there. If they try to stop me using my own device they can fuck right off, even if they are the cheapest. ill just go to the next cheapest etc.
Pretty drunk so please dont mod me harshley for this mini rant
Re:Freedom is the killer app (Score:5, Funny)
Pretty drunk so please dont mod me harshley for this mini rant
+1 en vino veritas?
Re:Freedom is the killer app (Score:4, Informative)
+1 en vino veritas?
s/en/in/
Re:Freedom is the killer app (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Freedom is the killer app (Score:5, Funny)
I live in the Vatican, you insensitive clod!
Disclaimer: I don't actually live in the Vatican.
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Grammatici Cluent
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Not to mention that customers with the money and interest to do this are the very kind of customers stores should want to treat right and have come back. This scanning is pointless (but probably still fun) for a can of beans. It only makes sense for expensive stuff.
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i'm not sure...
I once went on a photo scavenger hunt....one of the things I needed a photo of was in target. I (like an idiot) had a Nikon D40 with a massive freaking external flash mounted on the top.
I thought I was going to get thrown out or arrested, instead the store employees thought it was funny/a neat idea (the scavenger hunt, i mean).
So you never know. Keep in mind that most fo the clerks you encounter are, in fact, 17 year old kids.
Re:Freedom is the killer app (Score:4, Insightful)
Pricing isn't necessarily the killer app though.
it's reviews of products. There is a lot of stuff I see, and would buy at a store, but can't tell if it sucks or not.
Often times the instant gratification out-weighs the price savings of online. But rarely does it out-weigh the risk of crap.
I would probably spend more at retail stores with this device.
Re:Freedom is the killer app (Score:4, Insightful)
Apparently, whatever application supports scan-barcode-and-show-comparison-pricing needs to also take into account:
Ideally, it'd also warn you of the time involved, especially with an on-line order that needs 2-3 weeks to get to you, but even for just driving across town (which can be hours for large towns, especially during rush hour(s)).
Kinda like the idiots that drive all over the place looking to save a few cents per litre (or worse, per gallon) when filling up. Seriously, folks, saving an entire cent per litre, in my 60L tank, means I'm saving an entire 60 cents. At current prices, that's about half a litre of fuel. At my current fuel economy, that's approximately 5km of driving. Yours won't be significantly different. Same comparison has to be made about saving $1 on your DVD, or $250 on a couch (much more worth it). e.g., I saved about $300 on my last computer by driving to the other side of town (approx 30km each way). That was worth it. But most day-to-day purchases won't be worth it. Any app that fails to remind math-challenged users about this fact will be doing their users a huge disservice.
Re:Freedom is the killer app (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't like the boundaries of what's considered acceptable behavior, behave exceptionally and let the boundaries catch up.
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Just because it's the rule of the store doesn't make it _right_.
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you're missing the point. even if google and her telco partners screw it up, you can still make a google g1 appstore app and a website and everytime people scan an item with the g1 they give a location and price, and in return they get a list of locations and prices near them.
even if google screws it up, anyone willing to becoem an android developer can fix it. except for 1 thing. the cost of using all the bandwidth this is going to take...
well, you don't have to send the photo, so what you send is a 10 d
Babylon 5 and the ringtone model. (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's hope they don't. But really, that's the nice thing about an open platform. unless they absolutely decide to kill it, it'll fly because the consumers want it to. And that's different from any other platform -- American cell phone systems have tried desperately (and largely succeeded) in absolutely killing anything the customer might want, because they see everything as a revenue stream ala ring-tones.
It's bizarre. If the customer wants it, the telcos gleefully KILL IT and give them a crippled, pay-as-you-go version. This when the cell phone manufacturers are begging them to take phone with features, so the manufacturers can get some market cred/traction. But no, the cell phone carriers demand that features in phones be killed.
Sigh. It's been embarrassing. You go to just about any other country and they've got better phones than use. Why? Because the telcos have the American consumer by the balls, thanks to a hefty lobbyist (read as "bribery") budget.
But unless I'm missing something, here, if a telco supports an Android based phone, the consumer gets control and whistles and bells. Period.
Hence, either telcos accept android based phones, or ...
They SAY they will and phone manufacturers make 18 models of android phone, and then the telcos say, "GREAT! We love it! Just disable this and this and this." The phone manufacturers say "Sure!" and the phones go out, and we fix them. This happens for one year, and the telcos start telling the manufacturers to drop Android, or they won't buy their cheaper, crappier phones in bulk. And the manufacturers will get very, very afraid, and mysteriously stop supporting Android.
We'll see. I hope this represents a real change.
---
It's not the acting. When just one actor stinks, that's acting. When they all stink, that's writing and directing. Mostly directing. And it's not that you get inured to it, Straczynski and his helpers got better at it.
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You know, I've witnessed this trend, and I wasn't sure what to make of it, but it is happening. I had a Motorola SLVR -- kind of an underpowered phone, but an attractive candybar style phone nevertheless. One feature it had which I liked was the ability to use voice dialing with a bluetooth headset.
When I upgraded to a Samsung A737, I got a phone which was much more capable in some ways (faster processor and more memory, thus faster at running Java apps and so forth), but I noticed that voice dialing was
smells like a polecat (Score:5, Informative)
Or a CueCat [wikipedia.org]. We know how big of a killer app.
Re:smells like a polecat (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:smells like a polecat (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, what a great idea that was. Let's give away scanners, and then people can scan a barcode and be taken to a website, so its ad supported. Problem was, to get that barcode, you pretty much had to own the item, at which time, you were like, um, what is the point of researching the item AFTER you buy it. Kind of a gimick.
Sadly, the CueCat did have a very practical application that I used it for, but I had to hack it first. There is a program out there called CatNip that will let you use the CueCat as a standard light pen. When combined with a a databasing program for media such as those from CollectorZ, which refrences your material to stuff it pulls off the internet, you suddenly have a very cool product. I can now scan a UPC symbol on a movie, it pulls the description off of IMDB and cover art from Amazon or DVDEmpire or one of the dozens of other DVD sites out there, and makes a nice list. I can then specify where the movie is located, and even check movies out to my friends, and know where they all are through this cool app. I can then publish the whole list to html and upload it to a site, so now all my friends can see what movies I have.
So, yes, the CueCat was very cool and useful and I still use mine. Problem is, I found absolutely ZERO value in what they were actually trying to use it for.
Re:smells like a polecat (Score:5, Insightful)
So, yes, the CueCat was very cool and useful and I still use mine. Problem is, I found absolutely ZERO value in what they were actually trying to use it for.
And therein lies the tale of why Android just might have a chance -- IIRC, CueCat did their best to stop people from using it in ways other than what it was sold for. They sued some people, IIRC, tried to obfuscate the data format, had a unique key from each cuecat sent back with the rest of the data for tracking individual cuecats, and generally acted like dickheads and thus went under.
Re:smells like a polecat (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, what a great idea that was. Let's give away scanners, and then people can scan a barcode and be taken to a website, so its ad supported. Problem was, to get that barcode, you pretty much had to own the item, at which time, you were like, um, what is the point of researching the item AFTER you buy it. Kind of a gimick.
You missed the point. Cuecats were given away with Radio Shack catalogs, which included the bar code for almost every item listed. In a way, it acted as a bridge between old mail-order (catalogs) and e-commerce. They were never intended to be used with anything else (even already purchased items, as they wouldn't read standard barcodes), and I think that there were even some takedown notices regarding the various hacks, at first.
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Mine came with my Wired subscription...
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Oh, god, no. (Score:5, Insightful)
If this takes off, it'll result with me waiting in the supermarket checkout line for 5 minutes behind some idiot arguing with the cashier because his phone says a different price to the register. As if phones in supermarkets haven't caused me enough grief...
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Informative? This? On Slashdot? (Score:5, Informative)
Come on, as a programmer/designer this pisses me off. Only a complete and UTTER idiot would include price info in the barcode.
What if you had a price change? You would have to change the barcode on all your products.
As the article explains and anyone on slashdot could expected to know, a barcode (the 1D kind we are talking about here) ONLY has enough information for 10 digits. It is a 'unique' indentifier. The cash register scans this unique code and then looks it up in the stores database to get the price and whatever other information you could require.
To think that you would put the price of a product in the barcode is silly. ONE of the reasons why the switch to barcodes has seen the removal of price-stickers on products is that with barcodes you can easily change the price.
The OP simply meant to point out that he got the PRICE from the INTERNET with the unique code and is arguing that the price retrieved by the cashregister from the stores database is in-accurate.
And this discussion already happens daily in stores whenever there is an mistake made with special offers or a new product incorrectly entered.
My own recent story is of a frozen fries, used to be 1kg packages but suddenly they had 2.5kg packages but no record of it in the database. In the end, I got it for the price of 1kg while they went and sorted it out :) Got to love lousy math skills, a fair price would have been 2x the price of 1kg, but I suppose that was to complex.
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Today go down to my local grocery store scan and bag things as I go, a quick swipe or wave of a rfid CC on the way out.
Today I can order my grocery's online, and have them delivered to a cooler on my back porch so they are just there when I get home.
These are just two of the things I can do today I would home in 40 years I would hope a robotic car can deliver it and put it away in my house.
Re:Oh, god, no. (Score:5, Funny)
...in 40 years I would hope a robotic car can deliver it and put it away in my house.
That's right robo-grocer! Put those groceries away! If anyone needs me, I'll be in the holodeck doing a virtual 3-way with "v-teens gone wild".
Re:Oh, god, no. (Score:4, Insightful)
40 years ago you could do that, too. You just had to use the phone instead of a computer. What's more, many more people had a subscription to milk.
Of course, there's a reason the job of "grocery deliverer" was something people would actually consider...
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Today I can order my grocery's online
Order your grocery's what online? Do your groceries need accessories, or something?
Well, lemme give you an example (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I don't know about him, but I _have_ been stuck in a line while someone is arguing with the cashier what the price should be.
E.g., I wanted to buy some computer component at some point, so I go to a local small computer store. What do you know? Both guys behind the counter are stuck respectively with:
1. Someone who couldn't decide if she wants her new computer without a power supply or without the CD-ROM drive, because she apparently didn't have the money for the complete sum. So she's standing there
iPhone killer? Really? YES! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is spot-on. Yes, many years ago there was an attempt to invest heavily in barcode readers - the Cuecat, in particular, was a well-funded attempt to bring barcodes to the masses. But due to a major error in their business model - a grave error - the 'cat lived an extremely short life.
Jump ahead to 2008. People are buying fancy telephones, and there are barcodes everywhere. Google is in a unique position to read and process these barcodes on the fly - using a well-connected application living on a mobile phone. Next thing you know, you'll be able to go to the store, pick up a six pack of Bud, and scan in that barcode. THEN you can find a cheaper vendor - maybe down the street. YOU WIN due to CHEAPER BEER.
And we know that the world, with its flailing economy, will certainly needs cheaper beer. The cuecat was just ahead of its time.
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Buy some beer, keep the barcode, and scan whenever you need more beer.
Re:iPhone killer? Really? YES! (Score:4, Informative)
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Android uses the pull model.
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1D barcodes just list the manufacturer and product.
Which gets you what? Manufacturers and retailers have been dragging their heels on providing customers the ability to pull competitive price data over the 'Net. With the advent of loyalty card programs, there's now a retail price for the non member, a posted member price and an even lower price depending on who you are, what you spend, what your zip code is. Maybe even your credit report data. Only the sucker prices are advertised anymore.
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Simple number recgonition would work too (Score:3, Interesting)
I have bar code scanning on my latest phone. It doesn't work. The camera just keeps going in and out of focus. Having never had much to do with barcodes in my IT work, I decided to look at open source bar code readers and scanned in the bar codes on a few things (like my son's birth certificate). I looked and the standards and my own scans quickly found that often the number was often printed right beneath the barcode. Barcodes were made when computers were slow and had trouble doing OCR. They're a lot better now. Bar code scanning is still useful to some degree but to call it a killer app is a bit much.
Already in Japan and seems to be working (Score:2, Interesting)
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If you checked and discovered that your comments were irrelevent before you posted, why on god's green earth did you then go and click 'submit'. The correct choice would have been your browser's "back" button ...
Scan bar code? (Score:3, Interesting)
I just did an experiment and indeed the phone does not seem to be able to take a reliable picture of a bar code. I don't think it has to do with resolution as much as the crappy lens inherent in cell phone cameras along with the the fact that cell phone cameras were not made for macro photography, a tricky proposition even with a real cameras. To take back the resolution thing, a higher resolution may let the software extract the bar from a normal, non macro, photo.
So here are my two questions. First, is the lens on the G1 that much better? Second, Isn't this fundamentally a software problem. A bar code is a defined form with a known and rigid structure. Even with a blurry/fuzzy photograph, it should be possible to clean up the bars. For that matter, why are we even dealing with bars. The numbers are there under the bars. Why not use those?
In any case, how many people use this application? This is the first I heard of it. I certainly don't go around taking pictures of bar codes. The only time I thought about doing it was for my library, but a scanner seems like a faster solution.
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Second, Isn't this fundamentally a software problem. A bar code is a defined form with a known and rigid structure. Even with a blurry/fuzzy photograph, it should be possible to clean up the bars. For that matter, why are we even dealing with bars. The numbers are there under the bars. Why not use those?
I thought the same thing. Try to OCR the numbers and then regenerate the barcode and compare it to the picture for verification. But I doubt that all the barcode scanner app programmers have missed something that you and I thought of in a matter of minutes so I can only assume that either they already do this or that it doesn't work well for one reason or another (e.g. computational cost, or maybe if the barcode is too blurry to figure out then the numbers are useless too).
Killer App? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again, maybe the poster is using "killer app" in a different way than I would...
Killer app in a warehouse (Score:2)
A barcode scanner might be neat or even nifty and, to some rare individuals, it might be an absolutely killer app, but for the majority of people I see it being nothing more than a novelty app - something that's cool to have and you use from time to time but, most of the time, you forget you even have it.
Then again, maybe the poster is using "killer app" in a different way than I would...
That or the poster has worked in a warehouse. I've worked in one that's completely barcode-driven.
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I think this is a great item for price comparison.
Say you're buying an HD TV or something big. You snap a picture of the barcode and it pulls down a list of places which have it cheaper. If you can't see what's so killer about that then maybe you should go back to your xbox and let the adults talk.
PS: I hope you've finished your homework, school day tomorrow.
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If well dont have to be specific for the Android (probably most cellphones with camera could work this way if had enough cpu power to spare), IS some sort of "killer app".
Converting images to "data" (reading barcodes is not the only application, but maybe one of the easiest ones... OCRs, face recognition and others could work the same way) is another way to link the real world you are with the virtual one. You take that data, and search for it where is relevant, knowing more about products (books, CDs, fo
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Great, not only do we have idiots walking around talking on their phones and not paying attention to the busy streets/sign posts/cliffs in front of them, but now they're going to be trying to aim a camera phone towards the person in front of them at the same time?
I'm reminded of the borg.
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Regardless of how '1990s' bar codes are, if this phone will allow me to walk into a store, scan an item, and within seconds tell me the price of that item at competing local and online retailers... that is a killer app.
There was a post above about cheaper beer, and not only will this enable you to find cheaper beer, if 10% of people carry these things, they'll inform 80% of the shopping public that cheaper beer is available down the street - which should make the beer cheaper where you are standing in a ve
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To me, a killer app is one which makes you absolutely want it, even if it means making a different hardware decision. You know, like how Halo is a killer app for XBox
Perhaps to you that's what it means, but to the rest of the world its a new must have application that is innovative and gives the world a new capability. It is the new capability that makes users switch vendors and buy new product. A spreadsheet is a killer app for the PC for example. It offered finance types a new fancy automated calculator (
A bit illogical... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok... TFA pushes the idea for what would essentially be a product database.
You scan the bar-code, it gets sent to the server, which returns useful data to you.
OK... I can see how that should be useful to consumers as well as a hypothetical company that makes its living out of contextual commercials.
BUT... The TFA goes on and on about how it MUST be 1D barcodes and NOT 2D barcodes - despite the fact that 2D barcodes are easier to read for mobile phones because of redundancy and greater bandwidth.
And since The New PhoneTM has the optics that can FINALLY read 1D barcodes - let us make a database that handles ONLY 1D barcodes.
Cause... there is like a lot of them out there.
Hmm... how about this GROUND BREAKING idea I just had.
Make the "killer app" capable of reading both 1D AAAND... wait for it... 2D barcodes.
HA?! Isn't THAT fuckin' brilliant or what?
At the cost of... umm... nothing... you get a "killer app" that works on The New PhoneTM AND all those phones out there already.
Which it would be pretty stupid to just disregard.
Cause... there is like a lot of them out there.
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The whole point of my post is that it is pointless to build a database to 100% of data that can be accessed by only a limited percent of phone users - because it is based on only one kind of input.
Make it a 1D and 2D barcode database and you still have your 100% of data - AND a greater potential user base.
PLUS you get the producers of all those products out there to start competing for not just only that small fraction of consumers that MAYBE have a compatible phone and that MAYBE buy and use their products
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2D barcodes are not necessarily unique to one product. They are usually used to convey a message to the user (in the form of a link), not for identification. (The whole push thing).
1D barcodes used on products follow a unified identification scheme (Universal Product Code), and this is more suitable for the pull thing the article was about.
It's probably possible to embed the UPC number in a 2D barcode, and it's possible to not use it in a 1D barcode. But that's not how it's usually is.
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You're the illogical one. The point of TFA is that almost all products have old fashioned 1D barcdoes abd very few have the new 2D barcodes. What benefit is to be gained from adding 2D capability when so few 2D barcodes exist?
Furthermore, 2D barcodes encode info that the app in question (GoCart/ShopSavvy) doesn't use. The app uses that barcode to look up dynamic info, such as prices and availability on the web and locally (based on your current location from the GPS), and user reviews. You can't put dyn
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What benefit is to be gained from adding 2D capability when so few 2D barcodes exist?
Yeah... What benefit is there to create asphalt covered roads and rubber tires when everyone out there still uses horses?
No... wait... bad analogy.
Adding another input to the database costs nothing. Roads and tires cost money.
You can't put dynamic or user content in a 2D code
And you can in a 1D code?
the best you can do is a URL to a site controlled by the manufacturer, which may or may not still exist.
No.
You can put up to 2,335 characters in a single data matrix code.
You can have the entire 1D code, plus the link to the site, plus the promotional message, plus etc. etc.
And it costs nothing to implement. While at the same time it promotes competition among th
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So let me get this straight. 2D is easier for computers to read, and the carrot up to now has been that 2D barcodes, and only 2D barcodes, enable current cell phones to process barcodes, thus reaching a big audience. In spite of that carrot and the proliferation of cell phones with cameras, there are very very few 2D barcodes in use. This carrot seems to be not very tasty.
Now along comes a phone which can process the older 1D barcodes, and the response is ... wait for it ... it ought to include 2D capabi
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Yes, there are more than one standard. Again... 1 database input is a folly.
2, 3, 4, 5... 50 inputs... price of implementation is still 0.
As for licensing...
All codes listed here (including data matrix) are either in public domain or free to use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datamatrix#See_also [wikipedia.org]
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As a consumer, I don'
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As a consumer, I don't want to read the 2D barcode. That barcode is in the vendor's interest and will likely be very difficult to correlate with products from competing vendors or to find availablility from multiple sources to price shop. All I need is the UPC. Even that needs some massaging because some stores ask the vendor to put special UPCs on their products.
And info relayed to you by google will most certainly not be in vendor's/manufacturer's interest?
Cause... god forbid that google might peddle adds for products and services, right?
All I need is the UPC.
The world needs more. That is why EAN exists.
More room for data (which 2D barcode has) means more opportunity.
Manufacturers can keep their "personal interest data" and include the 1D data needed for the "killer app" database.
But... if there is such a killer app database out there - "personal interest data" soon becomes useless.
Cau
TFA says EXACTLY THAT (Score:2)
If these billions of products were instead marked up with 2D barcodes that provided the same unique identifier, that would be an even better situation, because the crummy cams on current mobile devices would have more success reading them. However, 2D barcodes aren't planned to be used that way. Instead, they're intended to push promotions and other vendor-supplied content at consumers. If you want to benefit from the "pull" model, your phone has to read Ye Olde Barcode from the 1970's.
Just because you can put a URL in a 2D barcode, that does not mean you can't put a simple text code there instead.
Interesting. (Score:5, Interesting)
You can reinvent something 10 years later that people have done for years, and now it is a "killer app". If Google does it, apparently, idiots pay attention and it is suddenly, somehow, feasible and marketable.
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I remember those Symbol devices, and they had a dedicated laser scanner that could reliably scan a bar code from a good distance while held at various angles. In other words, they were rather expensive, specialized devices. Now, of course, every phone has a camera, and some clever software makes the camera work as reliably as those old laser scanners? That does sound like something new.
Re:Interesting. (Score:5, Informative)
As long as you can scan a freaking barcode, you can store that info and hit that website when you sync
And that's where you missed the point about why this idea is getting a little bit of hype - this isn't about doing it as a batch job at some point in the future, it is about real-time lookups. So you can scan that box of cereal in the grocery and know immediately if their pricing is in line with other nearby stores and online sources or if the price is jacked up by 50 cents because they don't expect people to comparison shop very closely for something as mundane as a box of cereal.
It could even be smarter than that - tell the software that you are going to go shopping at two stores and as you shop at the first store, the app tells you if the product you just scanned is cheaper here or at the next store. If it is cheaper here, put it in the basket, if it is cheaper at the next store then you put it back on the shelf and the application adds it to the shopping list for the next store.
It is all about the convenience, waiting for a sync is not convenient.
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Can't Imagine why Consumers Need This (Score:2)
I'm trying, really, to imagine why I'd want this on my phone.
If I'm at Best Buy, and I scan a DVD and it comes up $2 cheaper at Wal*Mart down the street, I still don't think put up with driving, parking, and all that hassle just to save a few bucks. Now, if it were 35% or 50% higher, then sure, but that rarely ever happens in the retail environment.
And if it found it $2 cheaper on Amazon.com, then that's great. That at least gives me the choice... buy it now for $15 or get it in a couple days for $13. Bu
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I was thinking the same thing about inventory. Bunch of hp servers coming with barcodes for serial numbers especially.
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Now you're talkin'! That's infinitely better than saving a few bucks.
Seems to me that Amazon should make this app for the iPhone and Android. Then they can show consumers the Amazon reviews and if they're curious, the Amazon price. They could let the user order it from Amazon with one-click, put it on a wishlist, etc.
Another wonderful blow to retail. :)
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Unless you are at a used music/video store or shelf.
meh, i'm still waiting for teledildonics (Score:2)
i want to be able to call my girlfriend and well, give her a buzz
i mean this thing is called android afer all, right?
comments from someone who has used it (Score:5, Informative)
I was at the T-Mobile/Google launch event last week in NYC, and had a chance to try this. I also have an iPhone.
First, this is not a Google-made app, it's called ShopSavvy and it's from a third party. It will come preloaded on the T-Mobile G1, though.
It's neat. It's very easy to use and returns simple links to product reviews and prices from multiple online sources.
vs. the iPhone:
Barcodes on the iPhone are NOT slow. They ARE unreliable, because the iPhone has a fixed lens that simply cannot focus on something up close.
The G1's "improved optics" is an auto-focus lens that can focus on things up close. That's why this works. It's very slow, though.
"Improved access to image scans" is bullshit. It's the same in Android as the iPhone or any smartphone, at least for something like barcodes.
MANY smartphones have a high-res camera with auto-focus lens and can run third-party software like this (which has existed for a while). It's nothing new. It's only in the news now because Google chose to feature it during their press conference and demo session at the event in NYC last week.
Also, the whole 1D vs 2D thing is beside the point. 1D is the type that's printed on all products at any SHOP, so of course it's the type that a SHOPPING application is designed to scan.
Most cell phones can't focus on close objects (Score:2)
The software for scanning UPC codes isn't all that difficult, the problem is focal length. Most cell phones can't focus on close objects, such as UPC/EAN codes because they have a fixed focal range from about 1 foot to infinity. If you position the bar code far away from the phone, you don't have nearly enough pixels of resolution to get a good reading. One workaround on older phones has been to attach a macro lens, such as the one available for the Nokia 3650.
The Android phone must have one of the newer
Barcodes on Sandwiches (Score:2)
I love the example that was given. If Google wants to buy me lunch every day, that's fine by me.
We are missing the bigger picture (Score:2)
Cheap barcode scanners... (Score:2)
I know, offtopic, but are their cheap scanners out there now? I'd like to inventory my CD, books, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
"On the iPhone, scanning a 1D barcode is slow and unreliable."
True. Some examples of 1D barcodes.
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The question is, can your scanner tell the difference between barcodes 2 and 4? That's the problem we are currently facing.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting, but I think the real problem is that a 1 dimensional barcode is impossible for anything to see.
"Linear" barcode I can handle, but they still have 2 dimensions. Likewise a 2D barcode should probably be called quadratic. Then just call them L2D and Q2D Barcodes or something.
Just bitching, so ignore me.
Re: (Score:2)
The question is, can your camera focus well enough to see as fine lines as bar codes use.
The pixel size used in 3D codes is simply larger by comparison.
Bar code lines are the same length, which merely has to be wide enough to make a linear scan cross the code easily.
I believe the US Postal service uses a varying length code for mail routing.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Huh? The sentence you quoted is about scanning 1D barcodes, and you say the iPhone can handle 2D barcodes. Guess what? The point was that 1D barcodes are harder to scan than 2D barcodes (RTFA). 2D barcodes were designed precisely for lower-resolution cameras, but the downside is that most products still have only 1D barcodes. The G1 has a higher-resolution camera (3 megapixels vs 2) and can handle them better.
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Also, while you are speaking of 2D barcodes, 1D barcodes are a very different matter. 2D barcodes work well with camera-based sensors, and are often designed to wo
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
webcams are different from fixed focal length cameras.
most fixed focal length cameras are set to infinity. that means if you take a close range picture it's all blurry, beyond the ability of fast recognition. if the camera has higher resolution, the less the blur affects the recognition by software.
most webcams are set to a focal length of a few feet, or come with auto focus, or manual focus..
so a webcam can be lower res and have better image recognition, oh yeah and a laptop has a lot more processing pow
try again! (Score:2)
The built in iSight camera (that the poster referenced) is a fixed focal length camera just like most camera phones.
Re:iPhone slow and unreliable because of 2M camera (Score:5, Informative)
The submitter is quite right. I have an iPhone, and the biggest challenge with doing as the camera suggests (a coworker of mine had the same idea) is that it uses a fixed-focus lens, set to 'infinity', which means that it cannot focus on near objects - so the barcode has to be far enough that it's within the focal range, but big enough that it can be seen from there.
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Re:iPhone slow and unreliable because of 2M camera (Score:4, Funny)
Oh baby, don't be so negative.
I'm karmkarmakarmakarmkarmachemeleon...
Re:"Delicious Library" MacOSX since 2004 wUSB webc (Score:3, Informative)
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It's not "openness" pixie dust, no, that makes the barcode app better on Android v. iPhone. It's a 3MP auto-focus camera and API that actually lets you access the video stream rather than make you wait 8 seconds, such that you can make a usable barcode reader.