Mobile phones read barcodes: delegating the hard stuff to machines


Posted on August 21, 2009  /  0 Comments

Just recently, we heard about a m-gov application in Indian villages which uses barcode readers from Subhash Bhatnagar. The Economist has a long piece on how barcodes and mobiles interact.

NEGOTIATING his way across a crowded concourse at a busy railway station, a traveller removes his phone from his pocket and, using its camera, photographs a bar code printed on a poster. He then looks at the phone to read details of the train timetable displayed there. In Japan, such conveniences are commonplace, and almost all handsets come with the bar code-reading software already loaded. In America and Europe, though, they are only just being introduced.

Comments are closed.