Camera Phone Scanning World

Hot on the heels of my previous post on ShotCodes, I came across an interview with ShotCodes CEO Dennis Hettema by Heather Paulson at ReveNews.  It is a detailed look at how OP3, the company behind ShotCodes, got started, and how the service works.   He does make a good point that keeping ShotCodes proprietary rather than open allows OP3 to control the look and use of ShotCodes and avoid the confusion that arises when some companies use more open standards such as QR Codes and Datamatrix codes, but add a proprietary element to the process.  If you want some insight into OP3 and ShotCodes, this interview is the place to start.

Shotcodes are one of a number of consumer oriented camera phone readable code formats on the market.  In many ways they are similar to Datamatrix Codes, QR Codes, and Semacodes.  

Shotcodes are the product of OP3, based in Sweden.  OP3 is taking a closed (not necessarily bad) approach to mobile phone camera readable codes.   While Datamatrix Codes and QR Codes are free to use and can be created online on a number of sites, to the best of my knowledge the only place that Shotcodes can be created and managed is in conjunction with OP3 and their Shotcode web site.   When someone scans a Shotcode they are (invisibly) routed through Shotcode servers to the site contained in the code which allows OP3 to provide metrics to marketers.

It appears that OP3 is betting that through big marketing partnerships with the likes of Coca-Cola (story here), they hope to encourage cell phone users to download the required code reading software to their phones and to participate in marketing campaigns.   This is a much different strategy than was used in Japan where QR Codes and Datamatrix codes became wildly popular because mobile phone providers pre-installed code reading software on new phones and used widely accepted and open code standards.  Marketers had an easy time leveraging software already in 10 of millions of hands.

Obviously OP3 has an uphill battle by going the route they have chosen.  The odds of gaining anything close to universal use of Shotcodes are long (and expensive for OP3).   On the other hand, OP3 is giving corporate marketers what they need, an easy, enterprise ready way to create, track, and manage campaigns driven by Shotcodes.  And they appear to have had some good success to date.

I think the Shotcode folks stop by here from time to time, and I would really like their take on this.

Conventional barcodes are capable of storing approximately 20 digits, QR Codes are capable of storing substantially more data.  The storage capacity of QR Codes depends on the type of data that is being stored.

The table below (from the Denso-Wave web site) indicates how much data can be stored in numeric, alphanumeric, binary, and Kanji forms.

Simple Act is now offering free software called QuickMark for WebCam which will enable your PC webcam to read QR Codes and Datamatrix Codes.   Simply download and install the software on your PC and you can scan QR and Datamatrix Codes.   The QuickMark press release indicates that it is integrated with Windows Live Barcode, but the Live Barcode site has been down for the last few days, so I have not been able to test it.

I did download and install the QuickMark for WebCam software and tested it in conjunction with my Logitech QuickCam Fusion webcam.  

With the software installed, I launched the QuickMark WebCam application.  A small window opened showing my webcam screen.   I held a QR Code with a URL link embedded about 3 inches from the camera and after 3-5 seconds the webcam captured the code, opened my web browser and took me directly to that link.  It does work as advertised, but it is certainly much slower than the laser at the grocery store reads my frozen pizza UPC code.

Next I tested QuickMark ability to integrate with Microsoft Outlook.  I created a contact information QR code here, aimed my webcam at the code that I generated right on my monitor, and automagically QuickMark created an entry in my Outlook contacts.  Now that is impressive!

This free product and QuickMark’s code reading cell phone software get the job done, but there appears to be no documentation for any of its products in English (although there is an English version of QuickMark’s site).  The documentation is all in Chinese.  Until more North American and European products come to market, QuickMark is offering some impressive (and free) solutions in the consumer code reading space.  Give it a try!

The Windows Live Barcode site has been down for several days now.  Does anyone know what happened?

Most cell phones in Japan come with camera phone code readers already pre-installed.  In order for the rest of us to enable our camera phones to read QR Codes and Datamatrix Codes, we need to find and install the correct code reading application.   Unfortunately one size does not fit all.  Different phone makes and models require different applications.   To make this process easier, I have put together a set of instructions for enabling your phone to read codes for free for the makes and models below.   I will expand this list as I come across more supported mobile phones.

Motorola

V3X

Nokia

3230

3650

3660

6280

6600

6630

6670

6680

6681

6682

7610

7650

N70

N90

Siemens

SX1

SonyEricsson

K300i

K610i

K750i

K800i

V800

W300i

W800i

W810i

Z520i

Windows Mobile

HTC TyTN (also known as Hermes, Cingular 8525, Vodafone VPA Compact III, Vodafone 1605, and the T-Mobile MDA Vario II).

I just ran across a great project called Semapedia (not to be confused with Semacode).  Their goal is to “connect the virtual and physical world by bringing the right information from the Internet to the relevant place in physical space.”  More specifically they aim to bring the knowledge from Wikipedia into the physical world.

In practice the organization encourages people to encode Datamatrix and QR Code two-dimensional barcodes with links to information on Wikipedia, Wikinews, Wikibooks, and Wikisource.  The codes are are then placed in places, on people, etc, in the real world allowing code reading enabled camera cell-phones to scan the links and have their phone’s browser take them directly to the appropriate Wikipedia page.

The site has a great deal of information about the project and the underlying technology that is amazingly clear and well written.  The technical level of the site seems to be perfectly aimed at the tech savvy, but not technical audience. 

Semapedia has a great Google Earth/Flickr mash-up allowing people to post their Semapedia codes.  They also have a tool to help users find the appropriate software for a number of different mobile phone manufacturers and models.

via Thinkmobi