Category Archives: PhysicalToDigitalConnections

Microsoft Joins the Physical World Connections and Interactions Space with Microsoft Tag

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Microsoft has joined the physical world connection/interactions space with its release of their High Capacity Color Barcode (HCCB) called Microsoft Tag, a new 2D Barcode technology developed by Microsoft research that competes with QR Code, Datamatrix and other 2D barcode technologies.

Comparing Microsoft Tag to QR Code:

Microsoft Tag uses colors and triangles vs. black and white and squares, and it support Tags that contain URLs, Free Text, vCard, and Dialer type. A time-to-live or time-frame can be associated with it the tag, which is useful for marketing campaigns.

I’m a big fan of the new kinds of interactions that are possible via visual and radio tags; related to this see my presentations (SlideShare), and related pages on my blog: Physical Interactions and Touch/NFC.

The Microsoft Tag Video (YouTube):

Creating and Managing Tags

Microsoft tag is an end-to-end solution: the Tags, the software on the handset, and the software on the web that allows you to create and manage and print your own tags; see below.

Creating a Tag (Click to enlarge):

Managing Tags (Click to enlarge):

This is the Tag I created of type URL to my blog:

Downloading Microsoft Tag

You can download the Microsoft Tag reader client directly to your phone: Android and PalmOS (coming soon), BlackBerry, Symbian S60, Windows Mobile, Sony Ericsson and other J2ME devices, by pointing your phone to gettag.mobi website.

Is there a need for a new Visual Tag?

Tags such as QR Codes are high capacity tags already:

(from Wikipedia)

  • Numeric only Max. 7,089 characters
  • Alphanumeric Max. 4,296 characters
  • Binary (8 bits) Max. 2,953 bytes
  • Kanji/Kana Max. 1,817 characters

But as @torgo Tweeted back:

“…But do we really need a new 2d barcode? What exactly is the problem with QR?”

And @adamcohenrose wrote:

“I thought QR codes had no licensing problems?”

I don’t buy “capacity” as the reason Microsoft introduced its own tag, but perhaps is because “they just can”, or maybe related to licensing; while QR Codes are considered open, QR Codes are patented, but the patent is not being enforced (at this moment). Another reason is that the color-based, triangle tags provide for better “fiducials”, allowing for faster alignment and scanning thus better experience; this I need to test to determine.

ceo

NFC tag-equipped (smart) posters in Japan

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Crunchgear reports on Japan gets NFC tag-equipped movie posters…

Hitachi, Gemalto, NTT Data and SoftBank are working together in developing the smart poster system that transmits information to cellphone users from the posters over NFC; the cellphones use the MasterCardPayPass application which must be installed beforehand.

I’m a believer that smart-posters will become a very common interaction in the future. Today, it is all limited to trials. Smart-posters is about bringing a centuries old technology, paper, into the new digital age, by making paper interactive… this is, interactive via NFC and/or (smart/2D) barcodes. And I think there is a valid business/revenue model there too…

ceo

A very good day for physical to digital worlds connection companies. U.S. Patent Office Rejects All Ninety Five NeoMedia Patent Claims

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Back in March of 2006 I wrote about Neomedia’s patent claims related to computer systems that rely on scanned inputs — they claimed that they owned the IP for all technologies and computer systems that perform processing based on scanning barcodes, 2D codes, words, and whatnot. Then took that one concept and applied for 12 different patents — see Same Book 8 Times, One Concept 12 Patents.

Neomedia used FUD to intimidate other companies and preclude innovation from others.

But thanks to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the U.S. Patent Office Rejected All Ninety Five NeoMedia Patent Claims (The via the Pondering Primate); from the Pondering Primate article:

NeoMedia Technologies, Inc., claimed to own rights to all systems that provide information over computer networks using database-like lookup procedures that rely on scanned inputs, such as a barcode. NeoMedia has used these claims not only to threaten and sue innovators in the mobile information space, but also to intimidate projects focused on increasing awareness among consumers about the social and environmental impact of the products they buy.

It is a very good day for physical to digital worlds connection companies…

ceo

Google ZXing (“Zebra Crossing”) is open for business

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Sean Owen of Google left a comment on my blog about ZXing‘s availability:

We are open for business! I invite everyone to take a look at what we’ve got so far: http://code.google.com/p/zxing/

Neat, an open-source Java implementation for decoding visual tags such as UPC and QR Codes barcodes…

From the Google website:

ZXing (pronounced “zebra crossing”) is an open-source, multi-format 1D/2D barcode reader library implemented in Java. Our goal is to support decoding of QR Codes, Data Matrix, and the UPC family of 1D barcodes. It will provide clients for J2ME, J2SE, and Android.

Why? There are several great readers out there, and there are bits of open-source code already for decoding, but not both at the same time. We want everyone to have access to some great source code to play with, so we decided we’d try an experiment, and open up our in-progress effort. Maybe some of it will be useful to you — maybe you can help improve it.

“Version 0.1.” Everything that’s there, works, even if it could be improved. But not everything that we want to include is there, not by a long shot. We figured it best to release ZXing early while still in development.

Currently working:

1. UPC support
2. QR Code support

Some key features are still to-be-implemented:

1. Data Matrix decoding
2. Support for advanced JSRs

I’m planning on looking into this and if it makes sense participate…

ceo

Google’s ZXing Project

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I just found this little nugget at the wubbahed.com blog, which is Google’s ZXing project, a new (and still quiet) open source visual tags reader for Android for reading QR Code, DataMatrix and UPC barcodes (and probably others over time).

zxing

“Google is going to trial QR codes with print advertisers. This shows that Google is going to start actively pushing bar codes, but more importantly, it shows that they’re moving more into the print area, even if it is just to link people to online services.”

This is Google going after Physical-to-Digital Worlds connections, in this case via visual tags as applied to prints. Very interesting. This may look insignificant, but it is not!

And as an open source project, they are recruiting the community, which is an important part of Android’s open philosophy, which in turn results in acceptance.

Related to this see Interaction Triggers in Mobile Applications.

ceo