Mobile barcoding isn’t very new anymore. You’ve probably seen the QR-codes and Shotcodes by now. 2D barcodes that aren’t really advanced, they redirect you to a website or show a short text when photographed by a mobile phone camera. Recently Tom Gibara added a new chapter to the mobile barcoding book. He developed the Moseycode. A Moseycode holds much more information than any other mobile barcode. When photographing a Moseycode, your mobile telephone will reveal information like 3D pictures, locations and even allows you to add your own media to the repository/portal you’ve found. The content of the code isn’t static. The Moseycode barcoding system is specifically developed for Android. So we have to wait for a little while to put the Moseycode to the test. But did you already actually use a QR-code? A Shotcode? When you did, you probably were in Japan. Because commercial use of mobile barcoding in Europe or the US is still very rare.
With this last thing in mind, it is remarkable how many mobile barcode systems were developed in the last years. Let me give you a short outline.
1. At first, or at least somewhere at the beginning, there was the Semacode. A code that redirects you to a URL, nothing more.
2. Then there was the QR-code, besides a URL, this code can also hold a short text, a text message or a phone number.
3. Around the same time in Japan and Korea, the ColorZip code was released, basically a QR-code with color as a third variable that made more combinations possible.
4. Not a very long time ago the Shotcode was released, the amount of information a Shotcode can hold isn’t any different from its predecessors. The difference lies in esthetic aspects, a shotcode is circle-shaped and has room for commercial texts or graphics inside the picture of the code.
5. Well, now Tom Gibara developed the first mobile barcode that holds threedimensional information, the big difference is that we can’t use this technique until Android is released.
Of course it’s a good thing that mobile barcoding is developing rapidly. But I think there’s one big problem, caused by the fast and uncontrolled development of these codes. There simply is no standard. Recently I experimented with mobile barcoding and I had to download four different types of software, every code needs its own reader to be installed on your phone. Not very accessible, I would say. My own willingness to discover the working of mobile barcoding made me succeed but any other consumer would have given up after a while. This makes the technology very unattractive to advertisers. They would probably only invest in a mobile barcode to obtain an innovative image in the eyes of their customers.
An even bigger problem is that there are few consumers that know how mobile barcoding works. So when an advertiser would be tempted to give it a try, the consumer probably wouldn’t know what to do with that weird little image at the bottom of the billboard. So, is mobile barcoding doomed to fail? I don’t think so.
As I mentioned before, there is no standard in mobile barcoding. Developing companies should invest in one standard code. When this standard is obtained, they should all focus their innovative energy in the development of that single standard. All mobile phones should be able to read that code, like a perfectly build website that looks the same in all browsers. On the consumer side, one code is simply easier to grasp than four (actually, there are more). The consumer and the advertiser could be educated more efficiently, because there is less to learn. Barcode marketing would stand a good chance this way.
Peter,
At first I was prepared to dismiss this as yet another proprietary 2d code.
I read Tom’s documentation (as brief as it is) and whilst it has some interesting points there I think (honestly it’s only a guess as the information provided at the moment isn’t enough to actually make a conclusion) that what is occurring in these videos is the android OS is downloading visual information from a web server and inserting it into the x,y,z axis.
Whilst this is neat and ‘nice’ (particularly the 3 dimensional cube demonstration- for reasons too lengthy to go into here), it doesn’t allow for ‘inbuilt’ coding of any more information at 96 bits than other standards.
2d codes are often about providing information ‘on the spot’ in a self contained situation without needing to go ‘out elsewhere’ to gather information.
I love that Moseycode is going to be free of patent constraints and I love the 3d (really the Z axis) component but wonder if this is going to be enough……would also be very interested in understanding the ramifications of moving the code to other backward mobile OS (and what kind of physical constraints are required for the camera hardware).
Thanks for bringing it to my attention, will be looking with interest as this is further developed.
Regards,
Dean Collins
http://www.Cognation.net
First I’d like to say thank you for taking the time to write about Moseycode. I’d like to respond to some of your comments and to those of Dean.
On the point of barcode standardization: If a barcode exists that is entirely free (in the sense of being unfettered by intellectual property), well designed (in an engineering sense) and versatile (meaning broadly applicable to a wide range of situations), then I wholly agree that many industries would benefit from standardization on that barcode. I personally think that QR-Code might be such a barcode but I’m not in a proper position to judge.
So why take the time to design and employ any other symbologies? Because no symbology is best suited to all purposes. For example, the Moseycode barcode was designed, among other things, to allow for faster detection and accurate spatial localization. It’s very new, and time will tell if my design is superior in these (or other) regards.
With the caveat above, I think you are right about the importance of barcode standardization. In fact, it’s plausible that the Moseycode software could in the future recognize a variety of different types of barcode for the same purposes.
Dean’s comments are also quite accurate in almost every regard. Where I perhaps diverge is in the following analysis:
“2d codes are often about providing information ‘on the spot’ in a self contained situation without needing to go ‘out elsewhere’ to gather information.”
I think that this may be true now, but will become less important over time. Always-on internet connections (through which any subsidiary information is available) will undoubtedly become ever more prevalent (Shotcode is an example of this approach). Coupled with the advance of RFID tags, where does this leave barcodes?
Barcodes do have something unique, that existing scanners take no advantage of: their visible geometry. This is one thing that sets Moseycode apart from other systems and that molds its principles of user interaction. Internet connections and RFID tags don’t give you the same opportunity to ‘augment reality’.
In response to Dean’s query about its applicability for less capable mobile devices; a still photo is all that’s needed to capture the necessary barcode information and one slow speed Internet access suffices to obtain a manifest of the barcode’s contents. At this stage (depending largely on the care barcode author has taken) multiple layers of functionality may have been added, from the most complex (say an interactive 3D product demo) down to the simplest (a web link, or even just a number); most relevant devices should be capable of supporting Moseycode barcodes.
This touches on what I have personally concluded is the most damaging area of fragmentation in the current proliferation of barcodes. It’s not the lack of a standard symbology, it’s the lack of standard semantics for what to do with the data once the barcode is read. It is this problem that I would love to see Moseycode go some way to mending. A simple and extensible registry of barcode data that anyone can use to register and update their own barcodes would be a great leap forward; different readers could operate on the same information combined with their own symbologies and proprietary extensions.
It’s very early days and it’s a distant possibility that Moseycode could morph into such a repository, but all projects have to start somewhere, and I’m encouraged by the number of people who have shown an interest.
Thanks, Tom.
Hi Peter,
I had the exact same user experience as you did. For each type of barcode I had to find the corresponding barcode reader. Often it wasn’t available for my specific phone model and when it was I had to figure out how to install it on my phone. It’s quite unlikely that the average user will make the effort necessary to install such applications.
That’s the reason ZapLinks (www.zaplinks.com) was created. ZapLinks is a service which allows users to create and track images for free (for personal use). Once created, users simply take a picture of the ZapLinks image and send it to: go@zaplinks.com (using MMS or E-mail)
The colored circular images are decoded on a server and a link to the corresponding content is returned to the requester. As such, ZapLinks are supported on any mobile phone with a camera and an internet connection “right off the bat”, including the iPhone.
Thanks, Petter.
I see a need to start talking about establishing a forum out of which the standardization of these semantics can be created. At the very least something needs to be created which will allow for a more open dialogue can take place than what is currently going on right now (a wiki even?). The implications are amazing, but the implementations right now are very vast and sometimes confusing. I think it’s good to let these things grow as they are, but these “camps” that are forming could all benefit from an open discussion. I propose the formation of a standard set of resources for everyone from developers, to implementation, to the end consumer would be extremely beneficial for all. This stuff is very exciting already, but getting some heads together could unlock even more potential than we currently conceive. I feel this should be an obvious step.
do you mean a forum for moseycode or for all 2d barcodes.
if you mean moseycode – cool.
if you mean all 2d codes…forget about it, there are numerous groups trying to work things out and it’s just not happening.
the difference is moseycode and wr are open standards…the rest are commercial and trying to enforce patents.
Cheers,
Dean Collins
http://www.Cognation.net
I mean a 2D barcode forum. Is semacode still open? I am proposing the intervention of the open source community to sway the growing number of commercial developers from exercising significant control over the way in which this stuff can grow/ the market. A movement of sorts.
then the answer is good-luck.
QR is the only real open standard out there – if you want to reccomend this go right ahead thats the great thing about open standards.
cheers,
Dean
haha. I’m all pipe dreams…
There’s new moseycode reader called iCode Reader found on this site: http://blog.bryton.hu
It works on iPhone!