NeoMedia Technologies, Inc (NEOM)

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Nokia N93 launches with barcode reader software pre-installed

Nokias latest smartphone, the N93 has launched and is perhaps one of the most ‘action packed’ cellphones Nokia has ever made. If you look past the shiny optical lens, wifi, bluetooth and other 3G features, you’ll find innovations on the software side also.

It appears from various blog posts that the N93 is shipping with Barcode reader software preinstalled - for the uninitiated, barcode reader software is used in conjunction with the camera to take snaps of barcodes and read the hidden data in the image, like a supermarket checkout in your hand. Example applications for this software could be snapping a business card with the code on it to get the contact details into your phone without typing them in manually, or getting a web link that your phone can browse to over the web. This is not a new technology, it has an established base in Japan where they call the barcodes ‘QR codes‘ which was developed by Denso-Wave and means ‘Quick Response code’. The 2D barcode for this blog below was created online at Kaywa , you can also download their mobile reader application from this site.

I believe the ease of use for the end user and the low cost of implementation makes the 2D barcode superior to RFID and NFC technologies in many applications, especially those that have a high turnover of media so require a cost effective solution. 2D barcodes also support ‘bottom up’ social adoption of the technology through the distribution of free non-commercial software to create the 2D codes on a home PC and print them out - so anyone can add them to their business cards or posters.

A few commercial software producers are the Dutch company Shotcode and the US based Semacode and Neomedia. Nokia’s NFC shells for mobiles, although easy to use, provide little difference in interaction to the barcode consumer apart from one little word ’security’. Yes this is a contentious area in RFID circles also, businesses have to actually implement the security layer on deployed RFID, it is not intrinsically secure. I will come back to this comparison in more detail in another post as locative technoliges such as wifi triangulation, cell triangulation, GPS/Galileo and MANUAL location tracking should be considered - too much for this post!

So what of the N93 and the first pre-installed 2D barcode reader software? It leaves me with a few questions that the instruction manual did not answer that i’m sure will become apparent soon enough. Such as which formats have nokia decided to support? Semacode/QR/Shotcode? Does it support the UPC, Universal Product Code that we see ubiquitously around us everyday on our shop bought produce? The application icon would suggest so.

If it does that would open up some huge opportunities for previously conceptual applications to flourish. A couple of companies are already pushing their line into the market sector targeting UPC reading on the mobile phone in applications such as the ‘Scanbuy’ marketed by Scanbuy inc in the US. With this application they have been building a product database based on user’s inputting the barcode number manually. Their intention is redirect the consumer out of a store and online to buy products at a discounted price - for which they will gain referral payments like the 8.5% of product value that amazon offers.

However, if product UPC’s are readable by any cellphone, off the shelf, then the potential for bottom up social software to bloom is seeded. Imagine scanning a UPC and getting a quick report from greenpeace or amnesty on the manufacturer’s worker rights record or undesirable chemical ingredients, you could leave a rant or a glowing review on your breakfast cereal and create your own database! Mobile activism - or perhaps this should be called mobile action (maction man!) - will boom as this technology is not only cheap to implement and to participate in, it requires virtually no technical knowledge to use and most importantly for mass adoption - this software can generate micro payments to producers or traffic revenue for operators.

As my post on consumer energy efficiency suggested, consumers will more readily make positive changes to their lifestyle if they realise they can benefit their bank balance aswell as society and the earth. So has Nokia slipped an advanced ‘mobile action accellerant’ into their latest cellphone? I believe so but i’d like to hear what you think! You can find some further links on this subject in wikipedia’s article called ‘Mososo‘ (mobile social software).

http://www.phicons.com/index.php/2006/07/31/nokia-n93-launches-with-barcode-reader-software-pre-inst...