So how cool is this....the Japanese have long been in love with gadgets and now finally we have a mainstream company that seems to be putting some effort into playing catchup. So you've seen those new 2D barcodes, here's an enterprise reason to get that camera phone you've been lusting over. So this 2D code came from the Microsoft site, and if you were to download the application f So how cool is this….the Japanese have long been in love with gadgets and now finally we have a mainstream company that seems to be putting some effort into playing catchup. So you’ve seen those new 2D barcodes, here’s an enterprise reason to get that camera phone you’ve been lusting over.So this 2D code came from the Microsoft site, and if you were to download the application for your Windows Mobile device you could then decode what the original author embedded into it.So why am I writing about this you may ask? Well, barcode readers are mondo expensive, but almost everyone has a camera phone. So combine this recognition software withthe bar code printing software also mentioned at the site and you have a nice little SMB barcode inventory system.However cool, I started wondering why Microsoft was getting into the bar code market when the answer slammed me in the face during the review of the Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server. The document library portion has an automatic barcode labeler so that you can more easily check documents in/out of the server. Just makes sense that Microsoft would abandon the older 1D Barcodes (like you see on soup cans and other UPC labeled items) in favor of the newer 2D codes with a much higher information density. The recognition software also seems to be available as a standard windows app so with either a mobile phone or a camera on a Windows machine you could read information off biz card, a document, a computer, or just about anything else you may want to tag with a bit of information. Or just go crazy like our friends in Tokyo where posters for movies have a tag so that you can grab the URL with a simple snap of your cell phone camera.Link to Microsoft Launches Windows Live Barcode Beta | 2D Barcode Creators Technology Industry