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Camera Phones Read Hidden Messages in Print

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the go-go-gadget-decoder dept.

pikine writes "As reported by BBC News, Fujitsu has developed a technology that encodes 12-bytes of information in a printed picture by skewing yellow hue, which is difficult to discern by human eye but fairly easy for camera phones to decode using software written in Java." The first target uses are promotional contests and competitions, not entirely unlike those game pieces that need to be viewed through a colored filter.

3 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. Anyone remember Digital Convergence? by plover · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I hope their business plan calls for Fujitsu to give away decoders like Digital Convergence did with :CueCats.

    But serioiusly, did anyone ever use a :CueCat for its business-intended purpose? Even once would be remarkable. I have no idea why someone would waste time trying this with a cell-phone, unless they were already a geek -- and then they'd be busy trying to find ways to hack it, not to use it.

    --
    John
  2. Mod Parent Up by Max+Littlemore · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who are these donkeys who mod fantastically bad puns down just because they contain references to terms which may be politically sensitive or incorrect? I mean come on, that pun was beautifully apalling. Moderating it as troll seems to lack an understanding of what trolling is.

    I have a good mind to suggest "Nigger Filter" just to desensitize idiots with mod points so next time they see posts like the parent, they won't get their jocks all knotty. Who needs karma anyway?

    --
    I don't therefore I'm not.
  3. Re:Kill the barcode! by Mr.+Roadkill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The idea is that this will not be visible to the naked eye - you should be cheering this announcment as a way to get rid of the barcodes that you hate but still keep the information.
    Um... I thought that was exactly what I was doing, while also pointing out a possible problem with certain kinds of image. Things might get interesting if you're embedding patterns of yellow in an image that consists of a uniform white, or - for that matter - any other uniform or near-uniform colour. I suspect that under some circumstances it WOULD introduce visible artifacts - it would need to shift the yellow balance in sufficiently large blocks for crappy cameraphones to be able to pick it up, so if you're adding that to a solid white or some other solid or near-solid colour it may be visible.

    (and who the hell modded me OT? Did they actually RTFA? And do they still have enough modpoints to come back and mod this "Flamebait"?)