PSFK: The End of Shopping is here. The barcode scanning technology, mentioned in that Times article Guy touched on, actually exists and If you have a camera phone and either T-Mobile or Cingular, you can download the software for free and start scanning for the lowest price around. This is how scan-commerce works, after you download the software from ScanZoom, you take a picture of the barcode on the product you want to bargain hunt. SCANBUY, the creators of this new technology, also plan to include price comparisons of other brick and mortar shops in your locale and they will even beam you driving directions. Shopping 2.0: Shop until your camera phone drops.
There is also, Semacode, who are bridging the real world and the web world in their own way. They’ve created a free system that also allows camera phones to convert bar codes into URLs. Consumers can take a picture of the code with their camera phone and it directs them to a mini site which features a game where you can win, you guessed it, flight coupons. These UPC-URLs are also becoming increasingly common in Japanesse magazines and business cards.
Camera Phones Bridge World to Web [PSFK]
Shop with Phone
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I have been interested in this type of technology for a while. For anyone else interested, the company mentioned, Scanbuy, is actually being sued for patent infringement by Neomedia Technologies, http://neom.com . Virgin Entertainment actually settled with Neom earlier this year after they were also sued. Neomedia lays claim to the technology that allows a user to connect to the internet on their cellphone through the scanning of barcodes or RFID, http://www.paperclick.com/patents.jsp .
The ramifications of this lawsuit are pretty big, so it will be interesting to watch.