Norwegian newspaper VG writes in an article yesterday(norwegian) about what might be the next generation of barcodes. MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is unveiling a new type of barcodes technology called “Bokodes” that uses light to transmit information next week.
Going to the source, MIT writes in their news section about “Barcodes for the rest of us“ and say that their Media Lab has created a new barcoding technology that will be presented in New Orleans at SIGGRAPH, the leading international conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques.
The tiny labels are just 3 millimeters across — about the size of the @ symbol on a typical computer keyboard. Yet they can contain far more information than an ordinary barcode: thousands of bits. Currently they require a lens and a built-in LED light source, but future versions could be made reflective, similar to the holographic images now frequently found on credit cards, which would be much cheaper and more unobtrusive.
“We’re trying to make it nearly invisible, but at the same time easy to read with a standard camera, even a mobile phone camera” say the lead author of the paper from Media Lab, postdoc Ankit Mohan. The co-authors, besides Raskar, are graduate student Grace Woo, Shinsaku Hiura (a visiting professor from Osaka University), and postdoc Quinn Smithwick.
This looks very promising and i am looking forward to see more of this technology and how it plays along with existing barcode technology like QRcodes and Microsoft Tag.
Bokode looks very interesting. Does MIT have proprietary rights? Is any European organisation developing it?
I haven´t found any information on the topic of comercial support yet and as far as i know this is still a POC (proof of concept) technology.
It was presented on SIGGRAPH Friday, 7 August and hopefully it will evolve and get adopted as a comercial technology pretty soon. According to MIT it should be mature enough for comercial adoption as is.
Bocodes are likely to have a big impact on the way we do everything in the future.