Camera Phone Scanning World

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