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.)

Comments

to your local store with a laptop for massive fun

[CrazyJim1]

Excuse me while I go back to sleep.

Why would I want barcodes to control my house?

[Trigun]

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.

Re:Why would I want barcodes to control my house?

[whoop]

OMG, you like totally are not getting the hugeness of the enormity of such an innovative Web 2.0 use this will have on the impact of the world of stuff. Now, instead of going through a bunch of MySpace pages looking for friends, I can just go to MyBarCodes.com and automatically search for other people who have the exact same groceries as me! Then I can get good suggestions from what other people have bought from Amazon's groceries. OMG that will be so such a killa app for the Web 2.0. So you in the future friendz!$!

This might just be bigger...

[Anonymous Coward]

...than Paintdrypedia, the community-based online database of images of paint drying. Everybody can contribute by pointing your webcams at freshly painted surfaces.

Re:This might just be bigger...

[Aqua_boy17]

"Massive Fun?"

If you like that, you'll love my action packed front lawn web cam at watchinggrassgrow.org.

More International Feel?

[neonprimetime]

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?

Is there anything webcams can't do?

[Rob T Firefly]

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.

Should be part of "reorder.com".

[Animats]

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.

Re:A simple question

[glitch!]

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/

Barkopedia

[daniil]

At first I thought it was a collaborative project to decode dog language. Alas, I was mistaken.