Dave sez:
> On a similar note, regular readers will remember Michael Turner's thoughts
> from late last year on using bar-code scanners embedded in wireless
> devices. Of course we all though[t] he was nuts. And probably he is,
but....
Actually, I also thought I was nuts. In fact, I was. But now I'm OK.
Honest. The doctors say I can go home real soon.
In the meantime, though Motorola seems to have gone crazy!
You should hear what the CIA is saying about this mobile-phone
barcode-reader stuff, in their secret satellite transmissions that
I receive through my molar fillings late at night.
Before I get too smug about my wireless-pundit credentials:
I haven't done a check on my techno-prophecy score on this list,
but it seems I was wrong-wrong-wrong that Microsoft would
make some bid to stall Javaphone technology until it had a
chance to buy some franchise in the platform - or worse, a
chance to redefine it completely.
Well, OK, it's not SO late, because Microsoft usually waits to
see if there's money in something first. But its chances are fading
fast even so. Bill G. is probably beta-testing X-box prototypes
with his toddler, instead of paying attention to the business.
Everybody else in Redmond must be on the phone with Bush
Administration The Sequel, seeing if they can get an SEC
chairman installed who would approve their proposed
leveraged buy-out of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Um...before I drift *too* far off topic:
Something like barcode on keitai screens might work, but I think it
would have to be the so-called "2d barcode" hack -- a pixel grid
with some ECC encoding; several have been standardized. For
this, though, you'd need non-generic scanners.
This is a chicken-and-egg new-media-bootstrap problem, which is
almost always a long haul. (CDROM took half a decade, I think.)
And it doesn't seem like the right way to do it, anyway. In fact,
I can't imagine an airtight-but-effortlessly-launchable coupon-
verification approach, off hand.
Something that works almost as well as good coupon authentication,
though, is good coupon-USER identification, tied into some real-
time system. If someone starts using pirated coupons, you could
catch up with them real quick.
Japan is not big on carrying ID, though, unless you're gaijin scum
like me.
Japan could get better about this, though, in its own way.
Here is yet another one of my get-other-people-rich-quick ideas:
the wireless digital hanko. The business end of which would supply
a subtly-different impression with each use, steganographically
encoding a "transaction sequence number", as well as some kind
of invariant citizen ID number. The result would look just like the
registered seal-pattern as far as one could tell with the naked eye.
But try to use it without giving it a double-checked password first (or
perhaps some biometric verification) and it uses all its remaining battery
power to send an instant message to the police, complete with location
information. AND in the meantime it will refuse to print any pattern at
all except Hello Kitty with fangs.
Lose yours? You're safe - in fact, you might even get it back easily,
just go to it's password-protected web page and ask it where it is.
Put it down the garbage disposal by mistake? Just go buy a new one
and reprogram for your identity through an IR port, at the ward office.
I don't know if putting these into mobile phones is quite the ticket,
though. Sure, people are already working on the biometric part.
but a tiny printer, too?
Anyway, if anyone could--and would--do this, it would be
the Japanese, who are consumer-electronics radicals but
cultural conservatives.
Sorry, gotta go - they're distributing medication again, then I have
basket-weaving, and then Sharing Hour, the days are just packed.
Visit some time.
-m
leap@gol.com
P.S. All ideas above are patent-pending, according to my lawyer.
Who is sitting right next to me, OKing all this. You don't want
to mess with the guy. Why, we were in this seance the other day,
channeling Nikola Tesla, and you know what he said? Oh forget
it, I'll tell you later.....
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Thu Feb 8 17:12:20 2001