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"Pull" Barcode Scanning Could Be Android's Killer App
Seor Jojoba writes "The release of T-Mobile's G1 Smartphone is shifting focus away from push-based barcode scanning, where embedded URLs send you to locations of a vendor's choosing. There is now more interest in pull-scanning, where product information is retrieved from user-specified sources. It may be that QR-Codes and other 2D barcodes will have their thunder stolen by 1970s-era linear barcodes. On the iPhone, scanning a 1D barcode is slow and unreliable. But the G1's improved optics and Android's improved access to image scans has made 1D scanning quick and useful, opening the gateway for killer apps that help people make spending decisions."
Yeah, what a great idea that was. Let's give away scanners, and then people can scan a barcode and be taken to a website, so its ad supported. Problem was, to get that barcode, you pretty much had to own the item, at which time, you were like, um, what is the point of researching the item AFTER you buy it. Kind of a gimick.
Sadly, the CueCat did have a very practical application that I used it for, but I had to hack it first. There is a program out there called CatNip that will let you use the CueCat as a standard light pen. When combined with a a databasing program for media such as those from CollectorZ, which refrences your material to stuff it pulls off the internet, you suddenly have a very cool product. I can now scan a UPC symbol on a movie, it pulls the description off of IMDB and cover art from Amazon or DVDEmpire or one of the dozens of other DVD sites out there, and makes a nice list. I can then specify where the movie is located, and even check movies out to my friends, and know where they all are through this cool app. I can then publish the whole list to html and upload it to a site, so now all my friends can see what movies I have.
So, yes, the CueCat was very cool and useful and I still use mine. Problem is, I found absolutely ZERO value in what they were actually trying to use it for.
I got my start doing stuff like this on the PalmOS Symbol handheld scanners back in 1999. I've done this same stuff for years on various handhelds running mobile OS's. As long as you can scan a freaking barcode, you can store that info and hit that website when you sync...whether it's through a wired connection, a wireless connection, it doesn't matter.
You can reinvent something 10 years later that people have done for years, and now it is a "killer app". If Google does it, apparently, idiots pay attention and it is suddenly, somehow, feasible and marketable.
Let's hope they don't. But really, that's the nice thing about an open platform. unless they absolutely decide to kill it, it'll fly because the consumers want it to. And that's different from any other platform -- American cell phone systems have tried desperately (and largely succeeded) in absolutely killing anything the customer might want, because they see everything as a revenue stream ala ring-tones.
It's bizarre. If the customer wants it, the telcos gleefully KILL IT and give them a crippled, pay-as-you-go version. This when the cell phone manufacturers are begging them to take phone with features, so the manufacturers can get some market cred/traction. But no, the cell phone carriers demand that features in phones be killed.
Sigh. It's been embarrassing. You go to just about any other country and they've got better phones than use. Why? Because the telcos have the American consumer by the balls, thanks to a hefty lobbyist (read as "bribery") budget.
But unless I'm missing something, here, if a telco supports an Android based phone, the consumer gets control and whistles and bells. Period.
Hence, either telcos accept android based phones, or ...
They SAY they will and phone manufacturers make 18 models of android phone, and then the telcos say, "GREAT! We love it! Just disable this and this and this." The phone manufacturers say "Sure!" and the phones go out, and we fix them. This happens for one year, and the telcos start telling the manufacturers to drop Android, or they won't buy their cheaper, crappier phones in bulk. And the manufacturers will get very, very afraid, and mysteriously stop supporting Android.
We'll see. I hope this represents a real change.
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It's not the acting. When just one actor stinks, that's acting. When they all stink, that's writing and directing. Mostly directing. And it's not that you get inured to it, Straczynski and his helpers got better at it.