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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.'"
Sounds about as useful as a CueCat.
Nobody is in a library with 20 shelves in front of them. Computers do it better.
the cost per bokcode is like 20x-200x that of printing a barcode.
"Currently, the tags are expensive to produce - around $5 (£3) each. This is, in part, because the early prototypes require a lens and a powered LED. However, the researchers believe the technology could be refined so that tags were reflective and require no power. "We already have prototypes which are completely passive," said Dr Mohan. In this form, they could cost around 5 cents each, he added. "
If thats true, maybe they do have potential.
Oh yay. Lets fill our landfills with more useless crap. Why the hell do I need LED's and battery is PACKAGING? They go into the trash! We as a society are trying to move towards LESS PACKAGING and recyclable packaging not MORE packaging. Is the consumer expected to rip out that LED and battery and recycle that separate for ever single ceral box they purchase?
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Looking for books on shelves in libraries as a practical use for the latest technology?
If printing the code isn't effectively free, and a device to read it is more than $5, its not a replacement for bar codes.
For great justice.
Potential, but even at 5 cents each, they won't replace the bar code, nor should it really. It may replace the bar code for specific applications, but you're not going to convince frito lay that they need to plop one of these suckers on the millions bags of chips they crank out each day.
Don't get me wrong. The technology is interesting, albeit limited to battery life. But the images in the article look a lot like a series of datamatrix barcodes. These are already widely used in many industries.
As a barcode replacement it sucks. However, the motion capture aspects looked pretty good. Using infrared would improve it as well since the camera can pick it up, but your eye would never notice it.
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.
I would think RFID would be much better for the given example of a library. To expect the book spines to be completely visible would be a stretch.
At the end of the BBC article, they mention that there are already prototypes based on reflectivity. Presumably, this would make the tags easily readable with an on-camera flash, possibly an infrared one.
This part could make the tags a viable, low-cost alternative to RFID -- as long as your application involves line-of-sight, a 5-cent bokode looks pretty appealing next to a two dollar RFID tag.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
If it is able to hold so much information, why not get the whole book and not just the location? Well, with the books I read that should not be a problem. They are about 8 pages, made of chewable non-toxid cardboard.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
New applications are being dreamed up by the team.
If you have to "dream up new applications" for your brilliant new idea, it's not much of an idea. In fact, if the application(s) aren't obvious, and in fact, the inpriation for the idea, it's a stupid idea.
Can a modmin please edit the summary to include the passive bokodes that DON'T need batteries? About half of the repliers to this thread DNWtFV*, and missed that bit.
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At the end of the BBC article, they mention that there are already prototypes based on reflectivity.
Isn't that how bar codes work already?
So long, thanks for all the fish.
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.
Mmmm, my cell phone (android) has been able to read barcodes for quite some time now... why exactly do they feel that you need to have a special barcode for that?
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
it's for advertising. If that isn't obvious to somebody who saw the top-most picture in the project page, then they need to think inside the box more.
Nobody's going to use this for barcodes-as-we-know-them.
They *might* replace something like a QR code encoding lots of information (rather than effectively a link to more information), but for almost anything worth describing, it's worth putting it there in plaintext.
( what, I'm going to go to a museum of modern art, and 'admire' a sculpture from 20 yards away just because the bokode can be read from that distance? I think not. )
No, this is gonna be for advertising. Imagine you're taking some casual pictures of some friends in a night out in town. You just snap the shots, come home, and whoa - the entire out-of-focus background is laden with Coca~Cola, McDonald's, Ford and whatnot logos and other texts.
The beauty of it is that they could combine it with existing light-based advertising displays. Every LED in the matrix displays at Times Square could easily have this bokode applied so that even if somebody's taking a picture of a competitor's matrix display making yours out of focus - yours will still stand out.
( I sure -hope- this won't actually be the case, but you know them wiley advertising people. )
RFID is very appropriate for this. It's short range... you just need to walk your reader by the stack it will tell you if it's there or not. That is, it's a heuristic that tells you whether you need to bother looking closer, which presumably would save time.
Also, the reader + database could tell you if you are near a book which is in the wrong place, and which book it is. Then you look closer, pull the problem book for re-shelving.
the people at MIT do not have to remember a new word for the technology that replaces barcodes, because the new word, bokode, is pronounced the same way in New England.
/baaaa code/
"However, the researchers believe the technology could be refined so that tags were reflective and require no power. "
Disclaimer: I am one of the authors of the paper.
The story title and summary are a little unfortunate. We do not imagine the Bokode to replace traditional barcodes anytime soon. However, the real strength of the Bokode are:
- you get extremely accurate pose estimation of the camera relative to the Bokode. This means that the camera knows its position relative to the Bokode. This is something a standard barcode just does not provide. This opens up interesting applications in the areas of augmented reality, motion capture, and human-computer interaction (such as multiple people interacting with a large display from a distance).
- they are nearly imperceptible to humans, yet can be read by a standard camera. Unlike RFIDs, you don't need to carry an RFID reader. You can read them with a standard camera, or even by looking into them with your eye really close to the Bokode.
- We are actively working on completely passive and flat bokode prototypes, and have some results with passive bokodes in the paper.
For the record, every LED in the matrix displays at Times Square couldn't easily have anything applied, at least not more than once. I used to work in the factory that made most of those signs. Maybe they could implement something up in electrical assembly that could spray something on once, when the display mods are being produced, but A) there'd be no point, since you couldn't change it or resell that ad space, B) it would reduce the intensity of each LED, and C) it would likely reduce the overall lifespan of each LED. It was common enough to have to rub off potting material from the tips of the LEDs, I don't even want to imagine the hurdles involved in something like that. Besides all of which, the whole idea with the development of those displays is to make each LED smaller, to increase the sign resolution, which is going to make it even more impossible to cram any information in.
In Japan, all ads are tagged with a QR code (see parent link). All mobile phones can read this code via the mobile phone camera, and will refer you to more information via the internet. Even Big Macs are tagged with these codes, so you can look up nutritional information. Although this technology is cool, we can already do this with current technology, and it's already proven to work! What's even cooler with these Japanese mobile phones, is that you can even take picture of Japanese text, it will read it and convert it to text, which you translate over the internet. WTF doesn't the rest of the world that this technology!?!?
There are also a small pile of inductive power transfer technologies for low power devices that are claimed to be ready for market RealSoonNow(tm). I'd prefer that to people using camera flashes all the time in the library.