US researchers have come up with an alternative to black and white stripes of a conventional bar code. Called Bokodes, this replacement has the ability to hold a lot more information than the older striped version. These can also be read by a normal mobile camera. These powered tags have a 3mm-diameter (0.1 inches), which can be utilized to encode nutrition information on the labels of food packages or to manufacture new devices for video games.
Bokodes are slated to be exhibited next week at the computer graphics conference in New Orleans called Siggraph. One of the researchers, Dr Ankit Mohan from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) told BBC News that this technology will revolutionize tagging.
This new tagging method contains a LED, which is covered with a tiny mask and a lens. The Bokodes encode information in the light, which shines through the mask. The brightness changes with the viewing angle. Dr Mohan, from the MIT Media Lab Camera Culture group added, “It is either bright or dark depending on how we want to encode the information.”
The team of researchers working on this project say that Bokodes score over traditional barcodes in many aspects. The tags are not only smaller, but can also be read from varied angles. The information can be recorded from a distance with a standard mobile phone camera. This is something that is not possible with barcodes and barcode scanners, which can be read from a foot away at most, according to Dr Mohan. The researchers demonstrated that Bokodes can be interrogated from a distance of up to 4m (12ft), and theoretically these can even work at a distance of 20m (60ft). Dr Mohan added that due to this long-distance reading ability, Bokodes are of enormous use in factories or industrial settings to track objects. Bokodes also have numerous consumer applications, such as in supermarkets, where a shopper can use their mobile phone to read information. They can be used to encode information on nutritional facts or pricing offers. Dr Mohan says, “One to the side may say ‘hey, look at me, I’m a dollar cheaper.’ Taking a picture would also allow people to compare lots of different products quickly.
A similar system could be used in a library. Dr Mohan explained further with an example where a person in a library is facing 20 shelves containing thousands of books and all he or she needs to do is take a picture and find a book they are looking for. Google Streetview, a service allowing users to view pictures of city streets, can also use this technology. Currently, the images in Streetview are provided by trucks and cars fitted with cameras. Dr Mohan says, “Shop and restaurant owners can put these Bokodes outside their stores and as the Google truck is driving down the street it will capture the information in that.” A good instance of this could be for a restaurant. They could put their menu on one of these tags and when the data is uploaded to Google Maps, this information would automatically be displaced with the photograph of the restaurant.
However, right now, the tags are costly to manufacture with a price tag of around $5 (£3) each. This is mostly due to the fact that the initial prototypes needed a lens and a powered LED. There is hope though because the research team envisions that the technology used can be tweaked so that the tags are reflective and do not require any power. Dr Mohan claimed that they currently have prototypes which are totally passive. If this particular form is manufactured, then it might cost as less as 5 cents each according to the researchers.
However, this is not the first instance when a suggestion has been made for a replacement of barcodes. Microsoft has already launched its High Capacity Colour Barcode, a series of coloured geometric patterns, in 2007. Also, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, which is basically tiny electronic tags that have the ability to broadcast encoded information, have also been seen as an alternative to barcodes. Even though, RFIDs are already being used in library books, passports and travel passes, these have not been popular enough to replace the black and white stripes we are so familiar with.
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