4 ms·

Barcodes for the rest of us

39 points by nreece 17y ago

nico 17y ago
I didn't understand how you are supposed to read all the info in the tag. It would be a hassle having to take many pictures. The article (video) says each pattern has some repeated info, but I think that's just some basic small amount of information. How can you read the whole tag (all the patterns) at once?
robotrout 17y ago
Uses the Bokeh (japanese for fuzzy) effect that you see with an out of focus camera, for encoding information. The idea being any cell phone camera would be able to read these codes by viewing the tag with focus set to infinity (or for us with autofocus cameras, I guess we just hold it really close to the tag)
thomasfl 17y ago
This seems to be much cheaper than RFID and much better than visual Augmented Reality tags. Many new kind of products can be developed as soon as boko tag readers are available.
- robotrout 17y ago
  The idea of the technology is that boko tag reader hardware is available now. It's just your camera. It just requires software and you're done. You could do an iphone app today. The problem is passive vs active illumination. Currently, each tag needs an LED behind it. They're still working to get them to work with your camera flash.
TrevorJ 17y ago
Given that there are already camera-readable visual tags out there, I don't see this being a huge breakthrough. It is true that it can encode more information in a smaller space, but the reality is it is trivial and more robust to simply have the reader unit (cell phone camera, ect.) access an online database for details about the product. There's no upward limit to the data that can be stored that way and it can be easily updated.
- sorbits 17y ago
  You can read these from a distance and read multiple codes at the same time. E.g. point your phone to the cereal shelve in the supermarket and have it point out which one has the most fiber, even visually via augmented reality — this isn’t possible with current bar codes (without scanning them one-by-one and no augmented reality).

39 points by nreece 17y ago

nico 17y ago

I didn't understand how you are supposed to read all the info in the tag. It would be a hassle having to take many pictures. The article (video) says each pattern has some repeated info, but I think that's just some basic small amount of information. How can you read the whole tag (all the patterns) at once?

robotrout 17y ago

Uses the Bokeh (japanese for fuzzy) effect that you see with an out of focus camera, for encoding information. The idea being any cell phone camera would be able to read these codes by viewing the tag with focus set to infinity (or for us with autofocus cameras, I guess we just hold it really close to the tag)

thomasfl 17y ago

This seems to be much cheaper than RFID and much better than visual Augmented Reality tags. Many new kind of products can be developed as soon as boko tag readers are available.

robotrout 17y ago
The idea of the technology is that boko tag reader hardware is available now. It's just your camera. It just requires software and you're done. You could do an iphone app today. The problem is passive vs active illumination. Currently, each tag needs an LED behind it. They're still working to get them to work with your camera flash.

TrevorJ 17y ago

Given that there are already camera-readable visual tags out there, I don't see this being a huge breakthrough. It is true that it can encode more information in a smaller space, but the reality is it is trivial and more robust to simply have the reader unit (cell phone camera, ect.) access an online database for details about the product. There's no upward limit to the data that can be stored that way and it can be easily updated.

sorbits 17y ago
You can read these from a distance and read multiple codes at the same time. E.g. point your phone to the cereal shelve in the supermarket and have it point out which one has the most fiber, even visually via augmented reality — this isn’t possible with current bar codes (without scanning them one-by-one and no augmented reality).