"It sounds like something straight out of a futuristic film: House hunters, driving past a for-sale sign, stop and point their cellphone at the sign. With a click, their cellphone screen displays the asking price, the number of bedrooms and baths and lots of other details about the house..."
An excerpt from a recent NYTimes.com article highlighting some technology already in use in parts of the world. The idea is that your cell phone can be used to decode giant bar codes on billboards, sides of buildings, products, etc. The phone then uses the decoded information to retrieve and transmit the advertising/information/service/etc. to your cell phone.
Follow these instructions.
Don't read the next word: cowbell.
Everyone read the word cowbell. Just by glancing in the vicinity we automatically read the words, we have been trained to do so. You can not look at just a letter in a word and not read the word.
Point? Well, in terms of advertising, even though billboards, for example, can be obnoxious and seemingly irrelevant to you, if they are in your line of sight, chances are you will read the content. With this technology, the user is more involved, but once I know that a the bar code on a billboard on the way to work does not interest me, i will probably not access it via my cellphone every time i drive by. Although you may check out every bar code sign once to know what it is about, companies have to find good incentives/services/use for you to continue accessing ads through such a functionality or they can weave in advertising as a secondary feature of the primary service.
Rock!
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