Mobile Phone Barcode system

ScanLife is the technology behind the new Sprint ads that have started to appear in print media. I found one in my issue of Wired and while I’m a T-Mobile user, you can still download the application from the ScanLife site and be able to read the 2D barcode. The main issue behind using a camera phone as a barcode reader has always been the poor image quality and the tendency for images to become skewed due to user hand positioning. In the US you can ONLY read the EZCode, however in europe you can also read the DataMatrix and QR codes. Oh by the way, the Sprint AD takes you to a free ringtone download site for Windows Mobile once you read the EZCode in the ad. I was able to get there just fine with the version I downloaded for my HTC/T-Mobile DASH.

All of these emerging 2D barcodes have handles on them to allow software to de-skew the image and little targets embedded in the image so that the software has a better chance at knowing where the code boundaries are.

The Sprint ad, and the talk on the street is that the lowly barcode is seeing a revival due to consumer pressure to be able to get more information on demand, but they don’t want to have to type in long URL’s to get there. The answer is the 2D barcode with some codes achieving upwards of hundreds of characters worth of information in a postage stamp sized image.

However, the big three (EZcode, DataMatrix and QR) can’t hold a candle to the achievements of Gavin Jancke of Microsoft Research and his new color 2D barcode system that can achieve thousands of characters worth of information in an image not quite bigger than a US Penny. Enough information that you can embed enough information that Microsoft is tossing out the concept of a tamper proof ID.

So why barcodes? My spin is that it’s tied to the now ubiquitous nature of the camera phone. Since it’s there, why not make better use of it? I for one would love to see an apps (open source please) that will allow me to use my camera phone to read my club card barcodes, and then reproduce them on the screen. This way I can just scroll around to the appropriate club card and then wave it across the scanner. Though as I mentioned above, image skew is a pretty big deal and so is the fact that under normal conditions the barcode is displayed on a media that has a huge contrast ratio (upwards of several thousands to one) which the standard phone LCD hasn’t quite achieved yet. So I just have to imagine that reader errors are fairly frequent.

As a counter point the folks at Ecrio claim that they have a much better solution. Since traditional UPC barcodes suffer from a collection of maladies ranging from grubby phone screens, reflectance, low contrast, stray light, etc, etc…Ecrio has instead come up with MoBeam, a method to flash the IR or the phone backlight to satisfy the checkout scanner. So instead of having the scanner attempt to read the varying size bars of the UPC off the phone screen, they instead fool the scanner into seeing the long and short flashes that represent the bar code. So while I’m unsure of just how well this works (So far Ecrio hasn’t returned any of my email) they claim nearly full proof scans and are bragging about how it’s being used for ticketing and a wash list of supporters.

So I just had to do more digging and found Mobiqua who doesn’t seem to have the issues that Ecrio warns us about. In fact they’re got an agreement going with the IATF (International Air Transport Association) that has a pilot (sic!) project going in an attempt to eliminate the ubiquitous and un-recyclable airline boarding passes (due to the magnetic strip). When I asked the IATA folks if they’re having problems with reflectance causing barcodes to become unreadable, here’s their answer:

… Air Canada and Continental are testing bar codes on mobiles, I’m not aware of reflectance issues. Actually when it does not read, it could be the size of the bar code, the shape of the screen, or simply unclean screen. Or light reflectance. Japan carriers have been using 2D on mobiles for 2-3 years, reflectance was not reported as an issue to my knowledge. I think it is more an argument from scanner manufacturers, between mounted hand-held and flatbed. From: LEOPOLD Eric Sent: Thursday, 20 December, 2007 15:07 To: RILEY Lorne Subject: RE: barcode checkin on mobile devices…story for InfoWorld magazine

Another partner of IATA is RealTime and they’re got a bit of a spin on how mobile phone checkin’s will save time, money and the environment.

For a longer term look at the IATA’s efforts, download a PDF status report.