Researchers Debut Barcode Replacement 185
eldavojohn writes "MIT Researchers have unveiled a new potential replacement for barcodes. Using an LED covered with a tiny mask and a lens, these new bokodes can be processed by a standard mobile phone camera and can encode thousands of times more information than your average barcode. New applications are being dreamed up by the team. Dr. Mohan of MIT said, 'Let's say you're standing in a library with 20 shelves in front of you and thousands of books. You could take a picture and you'd immediately know where the book you're looking for is.'"
Maybe the most important question not in the summa (Score:5, Informative)
If thats true, maybe they do have potential.
Looks more like compressing existing barcodes (Score:3, Informative)
Don't get me wrong. The technology is interesting, albeit limited to battery life. But the images in the article look a lot like a series of datamatrix barcodes. These are already widely used in many industries.
Re:More throw away packing (Score:3, Informative)
Did you catch the part about the passive tags that don't needs LEDs or batteries?
UPDATE THE SUMMARY!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Can a modmin please edit the summary to include the passive bokodes that DON'T need batteries? About half of the repliers to this thread DNWtFV*, and missed that bit.
Why the need for a special barcode for cameras? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:A solution with no problem. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:More throw away packing (Score:3, Informative)
Oh yay. Lets fill our landfills with more useless crap. Why the hell do I need LED's and battery is PACKAGING? They go into the trash! We as a society are trying to move towards LESS PACKAGING and recyclable packaging not MORE packaging. Is the consumer expected to rip out that LED and battery and recycle that separate for ever single ceral box they purchase?
You'll sound more informed if you actually read the article.
"We already have prototypes which are completely passive," said Dr Mohan.
RTFA (Score:2, Informative)
"However, the researchers believe the technology could be refined so that tags were reflective and require no power. "
Some clarifications (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer: I am one of the authors of the paper.
The story title and summary are a little unfortunate. We do not imagine the Bokode to replace traditional barcodes anytime soon. However, the real strength of the Bokode are:
- you get extremely accurate pose estimation of the camera relative to the Bokode. This means that the camera knows its position relative to the Bokode. This is something a standard barcode just does not provide. This opens up interesting applications in the areas of augmented reality, motion capture, and human-computer interaction (such as multiple people interacting with a large display from a distance).
- they are nearly imperceptible to humans, yet can be read by a standard camera. Unlike RFIDs, you don't need to carry an RFID reader. You can read them with a standard camera, or even by looking into them with your eye really close to the Bokode.
- We are actively working on completely passive and flat bokode prototypes, and have some results with passive bokodes in the paper.
Re:this isn't for barcodes - this is for advertisi (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not for Archival Purposes! (Score:3, Informative)