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Barcodepedia - a Social Network Barcode DB
Thor Larholm writes "Barcodepedia is a community-based online barcode database, where everybody can contribute whichever barcodes they have lying around on their crowded desks simply by holding it in front of your webcam. The database is completely free to use, and everyone is invited to participate. The site should be available in French, Russian, German and Swedish within a week, so get all your friends and go to your local store with a laptop for massive fun. Donations of cuecats and other specialized scanners are welcomed." Anyone who's read Bruce Sterling's book Shaping Things may immediately think of Sterling's concept of "spimes" — for those who haven't, Sterling's 2006 SXSW address explains a bit, too. (It's easy to create your own barcodes, too — and then, not quite as easily, you can use them to control your house.)
Excuse me while I go back to sleep.
God spoke to me.
There seems to be so many better and easier ways to control my house.
Now, if I wanted to keep a running total of groceries, or keep a list of items for insurance purposes, then I might consider doing it, but it still seems like an awful lot of work, for little benefit.
News for nerds, yes. Stuff that matters... to retards.
...than Paintdrypedia, the community-based online database of images of paint drying. Everybody can contribute by pointing your webcams at freshly painted surfaces.
After a long decision process we have decided to change our name from barcoder to barcodepedia. This should hopefully give us a more international feel
Since when does changing an 'r' to a 'pedia' give you more international feel?
# (cur) (last) 15:13, 20 March 2006 BarCodeManiac (Talk | contribs) (rv to BarCodeManiac - germ-fighting capabilities of product stated in NPOV manner)
# (cur) (last) 13:50, 20 March 2006 KueKatKlepto (Talk | contribs) (rv to superior format as per talk)
# (cur) (last) 13:24, 20 March 2006 BarCodeManiac (Talk | contribs) (rv POV vandalism from moronic editor.)
# (cur) (last) 02:56, 20 March 2006 KueKatKlepto (Talk | contribs) (rv)
# (cur) (last) 20:08, 19 March 2006 BarCodeManiac (Talk | contribs) (rv Klepto's POV edit - see talk)
# (cur) (last) 18:08, 19 March 2006 KueKatKlepto (Talk | contribs) (rv; please participate in talk. This version has been extensively justified and you have made no argument in favor of your counterintuitive version.)
# (cur) (last) 12:47, 17 March 2006 BarCodeManiac (Talk | contribs) (rv; KueKatKlepto is censoring valid information that has nothing to do with "clarifying whether or not this product will fight germs that may cause bad breath." Stop the nonsense KueKatKlepto.)
# (cur) (last) 10:10, 17 March 2006 KueKatKlepto (Talk | contribs) (lets clarify whether or not this product will fight germs that may cause bad breath)
# (cur) (last) 11:41, 14 March 2006 BarCodeManiac (Talk | contribs) (rv massive POV shift. KueKatKlepto you are erasing valid information in one massive edit -- edit a little at a time so we can discuss please, or produce a list of all changes in talk so they can be addressed.)
# (cur) (last) 10:24, 14 March 2006 KueKatKlepto (Talk | contribs) (lets be clear about who said what about what and when they said it, not all information about this product comes from the BBB; the BBB is biased and one-sided; restore deleted FOX News link)
It's times like this I start to miss the 1990s, and looking at grainy pics of JenniCam's cat sleeping on a bookshelf for three hours.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Holy Guacamole, Batman! This is the sort of thing I've dreamed of since the first moment I finally came to understand the enormity of the internet. Years of text chat and popup ad bullshit later, I've been a bit disillusioned about the whole deal lately...
BUT NO MORE!!!
Finally, someone has come along and actually put the internet to the sort of use that we've been dreaming of for so long. I mean, Xbox Live was one thing, but man, it just doesn't compare with holding random shit up in front of a webcam and help create a database of barcodes.
The creation of this site may even come to be known as The Singularity (I know, the word is overused, but it's really warranted in this case). Think of it. How could you even dare to imagine what the world will be like after a social network revolving around barcodes? There's only two things we can truly be sure to find on the other side of The Singularity: sentient robots and faster-than-light space travel. All thanks to the power of a database of barcodes.
You heard it here first, people. BARCODEPEDIA IS OUR NEW GOD!
This would actually work with most of the modified cuecats... It allows typing in of barcodes, and that's essentially what a modded cuecat does. It'd probably be easier and more realiable than using a webcam, too.
Personally, I've been using my cuecat to catalog my DVD collection. There are some commercial apps out there that will read a barcode, look it up on several websites, and scrape the info about the particular DVD into a local database. With enough contributions to this barcodepedia website, it'd be possible to create something with similar usability - you could have entries for DVDs or music CDs with relevant info, available for instant fetching. In fact, it'd be somewhat like the service that cuecat was originally supposed to offer.
This is a sig. It is appended to the end of comments I post.
As a hobby, it's silly. As a part of something like "reorder.com", it would be useful. Show your webcam the barcode on any product you've got, and it finds someone who will sell you more of it, then adds it to a portable shopping cart. Grocery and drugstore sites should have had this by now.
It has a million household uses! Well, uh... You can take inventory of your food and spices, scan them in and out of the refrigerator and cupboards, and let the computer tell you when it is time to make more. Well, you'll have to program that yourself actually. But let's say you have something that is missing _most_ of the label but still has the barcode intact. You can use this database to find out what it is! See how handy this is?
:)
I have to wonder if these fine folks have heard of an already existing free UPC database?
http://www.upcdatabase.com/
A dingo ate my sig...
At first I thought it was a collaborative project to decode dog language. Alas, I was mistaken.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
I love the way the site proclaims to me "you must have flash player 8", well actually, no I don't.
This site seems to do the same thing without the nifty webcam-scanner and has been around a lot longer and is cue-cat compatible. It probably has much more in its database.