Mobile Phone Barcode Scanner

What if...walking on the street, looking in the library or in stores, you come across an information, a restaurant name or any link to a website which you might want to check later for more information?

Back in europe, we would take a piece of paper or make a new note in our phone and copy the website name. How long would it take? well, it depends how long the web address .is..and if we copy it correctly.

In Japan, they use bar codes. See the paper above, is a small flayer from the bookstore. Let's imagine we would like to look up some information, how would Japanese do?

Step 1) Open the Bar code scanner application (every mobile phone has it) and take a picture of the it...

The bar code is immediately translated into the full website address and can now be stored for later usage. Along with the website address, even some additional information regarding the website and/or special offers...

You might think that you never had the need to write down a website in Europe, while walking on the street. Yes, you are right..me neither! but.. In japan, there are so many ads and special offers everywhere, that soon or later, you might find this application useful.

We have a similar barcode in switzerland and we use it for e-tickets for the train. You can buy an e-ticket from internet and a barcode is sent to you by mail or MMS. You can either keep it in your phone or print it. You can then show it to the train attendant. He would then use his own scanner to validate it. Too bad that when i've tried it, the train attendand had a very hard time to scan the code out of my mobile phone... luckily i had a printed version too ;)...