Microsoft Tag, Smartphone-Scannable Barcodes

dhavleak writes "Microsoft Research has come up with Microsoft Tag: '...just aim your camera phone at a Tag and instantly access mobile content, videos, music, contact information, maps, social networks, promotions, and more. Nothing to type, no browsers to launch!' Device support is fairly extensive (iPhone, WinMo, BlackBerry and more), and tag scanning appears to work quickly and reliably from different distances and angles. Long Zheng has an overview on his site. The Tag is similar to a barcode, but has obvious visual differences — colored vs. black and white, and triangles vs. squares or lines. The technology looks interesting, but will it get the adoption necessary to be successful? What applications do you see for such technology?"

Comments

Nokia did that already

[chetbox]

Nokia have had something similar for ages, but the adoption hasn't been all that quick: http://mobilecodes.nokia.com/ However Microsoft do seem to be making it more obvious to the observer that you need a phone to decode these mysterious images.

QR code?

[MoFoQ]

sounds like QR Code which is widely used in Japan (it's what the CueCat couldn't do in the states).

Microsoft...always trying to re-invent the wheel and try to pass it on as a new invention.

Applications

[James_Duncan8181]

Hmmm...adverts/spam would be the main application I'd imagine. Also a way to get someone to a URL that they cannot check before hand as the symbol is only machine readable. This looks like a great way to get people to exploit pages.

Tempting!

We've been here before

[biscuitlover]

QR codes have been doing exactly the same thing for a while now.

And to be honest, I really can't see either catching on... The general public are constantly getting more familiar with the web, and getting more comfortable with finding their own favourite 'trusted' sources of information. Even if Microsoft does somehow convince enough manufacturers to start adding codes to their packaging, are people really going to jump at the chance to instantly look up a load of information on that particular television/cosmetic/breakfast cereal on some arbitrary MS website? Because that's all this really amounts to... a link. More info here.

Microsoft reinvents again

[solune]

I've always wanted to turn my phone into a cue-cat!(R)

64-bit proprietary hashing?

[infofarmer]

Is it just me, or do MS tags look like 50 positions of 4 colors, i.e. 100 bits, which, minus error correction, probably boils down to 64-80. It's obvious you need a server-based resolver to convert these few bytes into an URL. Now guess who manages the server and how much do they want to charge for each entry.

Big difference

[spectrokid]

QR code has the data embedded in the tag. This thing seems to be just a pointer to a record in a MS database. So MS gets a copy of all your data, AND you need to be online to read it. Thanks but no thanks.

Re:Big difference

[dhavleak]

Well, there's obviously tradeoffs associated:

A QR code stores the data in the tag itself so (AFAIK) it can have variable size. It's black and white and the shapes are smaller. So the pattern recognition can be harder, might not work well with low resolution cameras, and there are practical limits on how much information you can encode into the tag.

Microsoft tag's strength is pattern recognition. It looks to me like the tag has been designed with low-res cameras, variable distances and light conditions in mind. Scanning has been working for me from all kinds of distances and screen angles, and it's been super-quick.

To achieve this it looks like MS had to make the tag data a fixed length and use the data essentially as an index number. Sure, you gotta go through their service, but well, they're providing a service (duh).. They've announced that the tag scanning app, and the act of scanning a tag will always be free services. Creating a tag is free right now while the service is in beta, but I'm sure they'll start charging a fee at some point. If/when that happens, an entity interested in creating a tag simply needs to weigh the cost/benefit and decide if it's worth it.

About MS having your data -- well, for example if you're in an airport and you see a tag that says "scan here for arrival/departure info" -- you scan it, it takes you to a page with flight info. How's that different from say, doing a search query and reaching the same website? Ultimately, the person/entity creating the tag will link the data (URL, vCard, whatever) to it. If they're not comfortable with this data residing on an MS server, why would they create the tag in the first place? You, as the consumer, the person scanning the tag, aren't uploading your data on MS's server.

Re:Hey everybody lets to it microsofts way

[tonytnnt]

Not a new idea in any case, and the color one looks like shit, even though they can store more bits.

Now that I think about it, wouldn't QR Code have a HUGE advantage in some print advertising because it's black and white vs. color? I mean, I know that Tag appears to fit into a 4 color process, but it just seems like a 1 color process would be more advantageous... or am I completely off base here?