New York
It's getting hard to buy a cellphone that doesn't have a built-in digital camera.
These gizmos have caused outrage in locker rooms as unauthorized photos sleaze their way onto the Internet. They've also been used to catch criminals.
Recently, a 22-year-old New York woman took her own photo of a subway flasher and it wound up on the front page of the New York Daily News the next day. In another case, two Catholic schoolgirls on the F-train here snapped a picture of a guy who unzipped in front of them, showed it a cop and got him arrested on the spot.
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| Tom Keenan, Business Edge |
| Scanbuy Inc. chief technology officer Ashish Muni says barcode devices are more private than radio frequency IDs. |
Like it or not, camera phones are here to stay.
Now, there's a whole new use for cellphone digital cameras and it may revolutionize the way we shop. Ashish Muni, chief technology officer of New York-based Scanbuy, Inc., says his company specializes in "optical intelligence," or the ability to decode barcode information and put it to good use.
Of course there are perfectly good laser barcode readers that do exactly that, but you're not likely to be carrying one around when you're out shopping. You probably do have your cellphone, however, and chances are growing that it will have a built-in camera with macro capability.
Muni poses this scenario: You're out looking at digital cameras or laptop computers or pricey bottles of wine and see something you like. But is it a good deal? You could try to write down a bunch of complex technical information and go comparison shopping. Or, using his company's scan technology, you can take a picture of the barcode and your phone will instantly give you competitive pricing information.
Muni says Scanbuy has partnerships with all the major players in comparison shopping, including Shopping.com, Amazon.com and Pricegrabber.com.
These are U.S.-based but with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and mail-order buying, that's becoming less of an issue.
"You can also see the product specs and user reviews," Muni says.
Generally, most stores display a product code and it's usually there in a barcode format. If it's not, he says, you can still use the service by entering the product code manually or via keywords. Then, let the bargaining begin. "If you do see a cheaper price, maybe you can go up to the shopkeeper and say, 'All right, now this is real-time pricing.' " The Scanbuy technology isn't limited to reading printed labels. It also allows reading off electronic displays, TVs, LCDs and printed materials. Muni holds up a copy of the May 16, 2005, issue of Fortune magazine, which calls Scanbuy one of the "25 breakout companies for 2005."
If you scan the barcode printed in the article, you're taken to the company's webpage. Muni envisions concert posters with special barcodes that allow you to download music or buy tickets online, as well as product commercials that pop up when you ask for price information or even barcode-based dating services.
In addition to reading regular barcodes, Scanbuy has created its own patented barcode format called eZcode, which is optimized for use with camera phones.
This past June, Scanbuy president and CEO Oliver Attia addressed the NextMedia conference in Banff wearing a barcode-bearing T-shirt. He says people are walking around New York City wearing these. If you spot one and snap a photo, you can get information on the person. "It's kind of an urban game," says Attia.
A more practical idea might be to put the code on your business card. You can get your own personalized eZcode at www.scanlife.net for free.
"One of the most exciting things is that we can be interactive with the codes, based on things like how the person holds their phone," says Attia.
"For example, if someone is doing a survey, we can detect the angle the person is scanning the code at, and that can mean different responses."
He notes that they haven't put all their eggs into the comparison shopping basket. "We are branching out into other content providers, and basically the application is modeled so that it can grow infinitely, as far as the different types of content that you will receive. " Things are never totally smooth for high-tech companies, even ones with cool ideas such as Scanbuy. The first limitation is that they need "programmatic access" to your cellphone to install their software.
So far, that means only a couple of dozen phones can actually run the application. But the list is growing, and cameras are showing up in PDAs and other gadgets.
And while some people tout radio frequency ID (RFID) tags as "the new barcode," Muni is skeptical, noting the devices have raised a lot of privacy concerns. At least with the barcode system, he says, you can control what you scan and what you don't.
Another issue is that they're not the only kids on the barcode block. Muni holds out a street atlas of Tokyo with somebody else's proprietary barcode printed on every page. "This technology has taken off in a big way in Japan," he says.
As for how Scanbuy, which is privately held, will make money, Muni says "it's a click-through model.”
So companies will pay to have consumers make inquiries through the service. Of course, in the future, if you thought you might save $100 on a laptop by using this service, you might be willing to ante up something as well.
Of course, if everybody just goes into stores to gawk and then buys everything online to get the cheapest price, there may be no stores left. Perhaps in recognition of this, Sony has several high-end demo centres such as the 350,000-sq.-ft. Metreon in San Francisco. It's more of a tourist attraction than an electronics store. You can play with all the new Sony technologies, visit a high-tech theatre, have something to eat, and yes, if you really want to, you can purchase a Sony product.
That is, if your cellphone tells you to.
Web Watch: www.nydailynews.com/08-27-2005/front/story/340923p-291030c.html
(Tom Keenan is a professor at the University of Calgary and an expert on technology and its social implications. He can be reached at keenan@businessedge.ca)
