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Researchers Debut Barcode Replacement
eldavojohn writes "MIT Researchers have unveiled a new potential replacement for barcodes. Using an LED covered with a tiny mask and a lens, these new bokodes can be processed by a standard mobile phone camera and can encode thousands of times more information than your average barcode. New applications are being dreamed up by the team. Dr. Mohan of MIT said, 'Let's say you're standing in a library with 20 shelves in front of you and thousands of books. You could take a picture and you'd immediately know where the book you're looking for is.'"
I think libraries, cereal boxes and cell-phone-readers alike are going to be more interested in QR codes.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
A bar code can be somewhat dirty or damaged and still work. I'm thinking that the first time some snotty-nosed little kid walks into the children's section of the library, he'll probably wipe out the ability of dozens of books to be scanned with his mucus-mist.
It seems to me that even a small obstruction, dust, or damage to the led lens would wipe out a lot of the displable data of this led device.
but still stupidly expensive next to the near nothingness of a standard barcode.
its lunacy
That depends entirely on the application though. For uses that would require vastly larger amounts of data than a barcode or even QR code can convey, the bokode could be well worth the cost. It just depends on the return you're going to get from it. I think the case for putting them on cereal boxes is probably not a good one, but the example of using them on storefronts and buildings to allow information to be conveyed to services like Google would be a fantastic use for them.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer