Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Finds a Home For Barcode
MicroBarcode writes in about the color barcode technology that Microsoft developed but shelved two years back because nobody adopted it. The technology promised a way to link packaging to Web sites — and once cell phone cameras get good enough, Microsoft hoped lots of people would use it. It seems the technology has finally found a home: the ISAN International Agency has inked a deal with Microsoft. The color barcodes, consisting of red, green, yellow, and black triangles, will appear on XBox 360 games and other products beginning later this year.
Once the group starts issuing the barcodes, studios and producers will be able to link their Web sites to that database. One day, consumers might use a digital camera to "scan" barcodes on DVD cases, in advertisements and on billboards, then be transported to a Web page to watch trailers or buy products.
So, what you're telling us is that this is nothing but a pointless technology and that it would be much easier just to post a URL?
I have a to take a picture, possibly be charged depending on my mobile plan and if I choose that route, and then be tracked by Microsoft and the end company and then go to a website that would have been easier to just type in?
Right. Dumb.
Sounds exactly like the CueCat.
Which, of course, sucked. One article about it from several years ago said something like:
"It fails to solve a problem that doesn't exist."
The CueCat was a piece of free hardware that was hacked. This wouldn't require the passing out of any hardware that could be taken advantage of.
I won't succeed simply because they look like shit. Maybe if they used blue instead of puke yellow then the symbol would look more nifty. Now those monochrome semacodes discussed above, I've seen those on packages before, and those have style!
You're anti-MS zealotry is clouding your mind.
Look. It's just like the QR Codes in Japan. What makes them so special is that you can encode much, much more data into them than a typical barcode (the blac&white QR codes can hold about 3KB, I assume this color version can do better). This lets you encode a ton more data about a product than w/ a typical barcode.
Basically it holds all of the promise of RFID with none of the scary privacy issues. But this is slashdot, so I realize I must spin this as evil. DIE MICROSOFT DIE! There, happy?
While there are markers so that the orientation can be determined by scanners, there's no way to extend this encoding along the length of a package in any relatively inconspicuous manner the way that ISO/IEC 15416 codes do. This is the same problem which has prevented mass adoption of the Datamatrix 2D code outside of specific areas such as postage and shipping which simply needed to include the additional data required.
This is an interesting system and even more capable than Datamatrix and ShotCode of encoding a lot of information in a limited area. Unfortunately it suffers not only from requiring higher printing specs for those who use it (reflectance is of utmost importance; see here) but also from a return to a less usable system in key areas. This is for retail packaging but it will slow (or prevent speeding up of) standard, real-life usage.
Yes, it would be possible to place multiple copies of the code along the length of some item, but the colour factor as well as the required resolution don't allow for interruptions and additional area uses that the current lengthwise 1D barcodes do.
Not unless by "a ton" you mean twice as much, it's four colors instead of two. At the cost of a totally incompatible system.
We have had labels with two-dimensional scan codes for years. These can be printed in any laser printer and scanned in a monochrome scanner. Software for those is everywhere it's needed, inventory systems have it, point-of-sale systems have it.
Why replace something that has been working fine? It's that old Microsoft tactic of inventing a new "standard" way of doing things and pushing its monopolistic muscle to squeeze other companies out of the business.