(keitai-l) Re: Digital Skin is IN! Already. Really. (was Re: Embedding URLs In The Physical Environment)

From: Jani PATOKALLIO <jpatokal_at_iki.fi>
Date: 11/21/00
Message-ID: <3A19EC0C.C56A47AB@iki.fi>
Michael Turner wrote:
> From: "Jani PATOKALLIO" <jpatokal@iki.fi>
> > > Yes, I understood this much, but *how are you going to get this to
> work*?
> 
> How about slightly reducing the scope, and slightly increasing the effort
> required?  Simply limit applicable objects to those that happen to be
> barcode-labeled, and require the interested user to scan the barcode with
> the mobile.
[...]
> Make no mistake: URLs In Everything is a phenomenon waiting to
> happen, considering that they are already putting cameras in
> keitai-size units, label scanning is a good low-end starter candidate.
> It once it gets going, it could spread very fast.  Into security,
> shopping...even politics....

So you're proposing integrating the CueCat into a mobile?

  http://www.cuecat.com/

How do you propose to avoid the problems outlined in Salon...

  http://www.salon.com/tech/col/rose/2000/09/15/cuecat/index.html

...and Slashdot (too many articles to list, do an older-articles search
for "CueCat" if interested)?  I'll just quote one paragraph from Salon:

    It will allow millions of people who might otherwise simply point and
    click their way across the Web to ... find Web pages by running their
    scanners over bar codes in magazines and other marketing material. 

    Somehow this revolution eludes me. 

Me too.  You're essentially attempting to retrofit hyperlinks into
the physical world.  It's a cute idea, but I think it's heading in
exactly the wrong direction: in the future, I want to be able to
read magazines on my mobile and click on its electronic links, not
wade through dead trees and jab at them with my mobile.  And the
times I've stared at a can of Spam and thought "Gee, I really wish
I could access some information about Hormel's line of other
nutritious luncheon meat products, but I'm too lazy to type
www.spam.com into a browser" have been few and far between.

That said, I wouldn't mind having a barcode scanner embedded in
my phone, it would be just another nifty but largely useless
feature.  Good luck convincing the phone manufacturers though...

Cheers,
-- 
Jani PATOKALLIO / jpatokal@iki.fi / +81 90 7722 3557
Sanpo Laboratory, Mechano-Informatics Dept., University of Tokyo
ヤニ・パトカリオ / jani@sanpo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp / 090 7722 3557
東京大学、工学系研究科、機械情報工学科、算法設計研究室

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Received on Tue Nov 21 05:03:30 2000