ReadWriteWeb published a 3-part series on bar coding scanning with mobile phones last year that is must reading for anyone interested in this technology.
4) Scan Products In The Store (Coming Soon, Perhaps)
From The Scannable World, Part 3: Barcode Scanning In The Real World
A company looking to take mobile barcode reading mainstream in the real world is StoreXperience. This m-commerce platform allows consumers to capture 2D barcodes from products. Consumers could then see product information, including local availability and customized offers right on their mobile handsets. StoreXperience isn’t just limited to 2D barcodes, though. Their technology also supports RFID tags and soon 1D barcodes, too. Unfortunately, although StoreXperience has built a platform they aren’t in any noteworthy stores as of today. We’re disappointed that you can’t actually use this technology yet, but we’re keeping our eye on it.
Of course, we were doing this in 2003 with iShop from SmartWorlds. Now with pervasive high speed mobile access to the Internet via Wi-Fi and 3G and smartphones like the iPhone with built-in cameras, a number of companies have made progress in bringing scanning of product bar codes into the mainstream, lead by Occipital’s Red Laser, the leading paid app on the Apple App Store.
