Amazon Japan Offers Barcode Purchases via Camera Phone

Zode writes "Jesse James Garrett reports that Amazon Mobile Japan customers can purchase a item with their camera phones. "Snap a photo of a product bar code using your cell phone, and Amazon Japan will give you a price check," according to Garrett, relaying from this article in Ketai Watch (Wireless Watch). Here's the English translation from Babelfish."

Comments

Re:Available in America...

[physicsphairy]

Actually your post was the 10907649th post. Sorry, I'm afraid you were slow.

Purchase from ADs ?

[Gopal.V]

It looks as though the shopping is done from bar codes on Real-ads :)

Bar codes are kinda hard to get right on a mobile phone camera (but I think high end only).

This is the beginning of a new cross-shopping trend. Enter a shop, look for a product , enter in amazon , measure urgency vs economy , pick it up or order :)

I already saw a company in India offer an IR universal remote control for their phones (Nokia 3220 IIRC) . Was a trial version for 15 days after which it asks whether you want to buy the app. You pay for it through your mobile too and the bill comes down to you as part of your monthly phone bill.

M-commerce , eh ?

Male information

[Spy Handler]

"In addition, such as CD sales ranking of search keyword ranking and American Amazon the male also information is published."

Why is Amazon publishing my male information?

What about the bookstores?

[lastninja]

How long until bookstores forbid the use of camera phones? I think many bookstore owners would be less than pleased if people only entered their store to be able to buy books from some other place.

Re:What about the bookstores?

[Cryptnotic]

Prices on books in Japan are pretty much fixed. The price including or excluding tax (which is a standard 5% across the country) are printed on the book by the publisher. I guess there are discounters, but Amazon doesn't seem to be one of them. All prices there seem to be standard, or maybe 5% or so off.

Japan does other weird things like splitting books into two halves. I'm not sure what purpose this serves, since usually they're sold together. I guess you could maybe buy the first half and then decide if you want to buy and read the second half or not. Maybe it's easier to hold one small book at a time rather than one large book.

My kanji and vocabulary are so weak that all I can read are manga for kids. Even then, I need a dictionary, and I'm probably picking up all kinds of weird childish or goofy expressions.

Re:What about the bookstores?

[Captain_Frisk]

I'm not sure, but I had the distinct impression that the loud noise was not to tip off shoppers, but to tip off ladies that you might be using your camera phone to take rude pictures of. (In the locker room, or up some poor girls skirt)

All we need now..

[up4fun]

is standard barcodes and we could do price comparisons in the same way that shazam tags recorded music.

Imagine sending a picture of a barcode to ebay to see if there's an auction for that item running.

This was bound to happen

[novalogic]

Well, this seems like a neat system, however, I hardly ever use Amazon as a price referance, I tend to look at ebay when I buy things. If it's retail, then it's retail. It's the aftermarket price that I worry about... Unless www.pricewatch.com can come up with a system like this, that woud be snazzy

Not a wacky idea. A stupid idea.

[Lord Kano]

First, one of the benefits of bar codes is that you don't have to put individual price tags on items anymore.

Second, if you had to pay someone to manage all of those price tags, you'd have to raise your prices thereby making amazon an even more attractive alternative and losing even more business in the proces.

Third, did you even think about what you were suggesting before you did it?

LK

Bezos on TechTV

[shaneh0]

I saw Jeff Bezos on TechTV about a year ago and he talked about this technology as being a precursor to complete optical product recognition.

Essentially, he explained, you could take a picture of anything from the cover of a book to an action figure, mountain bike, sandbox, stereo reciever, sweatshirt or snow mobile and recieve price comparison from Amazons network of retail sites and "shops."

I remember it distinctly because it was the first time i actually felt that a camera on a cell phone wasn't the most idiotic idea I've ever heard.

This was, of course, BEFORE I discovered that women stick their camera-phones down their pants and take pictures, and ACTUALLY POST THEM ON THE INTERNET!

Hmm.. I wonder if Amazon.nl would give you a price comparison of THAT... hmmm... ...not that I would use such a service, even if it existed... ...but if you happen to, you know, come across one.. maybe.. let me know?

Indian patents ...

[Gopal.V]

> does patent law work the same way in India as it does in the US

Introduction, Preliminary, Inventions not Patentable clearly mentions something about e-Patents .. so that post can be easily forgotten .

Computer Programs
1. Computer program is not patentable invention as computer program is
a set of instructions for controlling a sequence of operations of a dataprocessing
system. It closely resembles a mathematical method .It
may be expressed in various forms eg. A series of verbal statements, a
flow chart, an algorithm, or other coded form and may be presented in
a format suitable for direct entry into a particular computer, or may
require transcription into a different format (or computer “language”). It
may merely be written on paper or recorded on some machine-
readable medium such as magnetic tape or disc or optically scanned
record, or it may be permanently recorded in a control store forming
part of a computer. Thus it is evident that a program may be presented
in terms of either software or firmware.

India does offer Process Patents but explicitly prevents patenting naturally occurring substances or extracts there of. However you are free to patent your form of culturing or producing an anti-biotic or vaccine. Patent infringement can be enforced in India as is with any other country in the world. Interestingly , Prior art of Foreign origin are valid in India - unlike the USPTO .

Get an OSS Loving, Nuke Missile Desgning President for your country too :)

OT: Re:What about the bookstores?

[ProfitElijah]

Yeah, they split them because Japanese books are historically a smaller form factor than Western ones. Lord of the Rings, for example, is sold as an 11 book box set. Smaller books fit in handbags better, and given than nearly everyone in Tokyo has a painfully long commute, making books small enough to hold in one hand while standing is a good idea. I used to reverse commute from my place in central Tokyo out to the National Cancer Center East, about 2 hours in all, and standing most of the way. Little books would have been nice.