February 15, 2007 | Posted By : Paul Hirsch at 4:12 PM PERMALINK | Blog Comments (2)

Hiding information in plain "site"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6361891.stm

Fujitsu has announced it is nearly ready to make a new technology available to the public. It is pushing a technique that buries data into pictures that cameras can pick up and use, but is not visible to the naked eye. By offsetting pixels within the yellow color channel, cameras can pick up patterns and decipher and use all sorts of data. For example, you could take a picture of a magazine ad with your cell phone, and instantly your phone connects to a corresponding Web site or dials a phone number.

If this sounds familiar to you, you're probably having deja-vu over the short-lived Cue Cat, a device that did much the same thing, only it used bar codes, and (it seems) involved even more proprietary technology.

The implications for Web designers are significant if this newer technology takes root. Marketing and development strategies will reflect a uniting of print and online technology, and the most successful designers and firms will be the ones with the broad skill sets necessary to deliver across media. Already the best developers view their clients' objectives in this manner, but they'll have the opportunity to incorporate a whole new delivery mechanism...delivery philosophy, if you will, into their work.

Of course, this technology has to be accepted first. History tells us this is not going to be as easy as it sounds. But who knows...

Who ever thought "point and click to access our Web site" would apply to something other than a URL?

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I don't know about you, but it really doesn't sound all that appetizing to me. The last thing I think of when reading a magazine article is to pull out my cell phone and wave it in front of the article like an idiot. Perhaps it could be accepted, but it doesn't seem like a likely prospect for success. It really just seems so much easier to me to instead have a phone number or web site address listed right in the article.

Although, it would be some what nice to have a device where you could email an URL to yourself when you're reading an article at the local library (or in the dentists office) so that you don't forget it once you get home (or once you come down from the high of Nitrous oxide). So perhaps, contradicting my earlier comments, this could actually be success.

# Posted By Terry Myers | 2/17/07 11:02 PM

Yes, contact data is only one possibility (a more obvious one). Imagine viewing a Martha Stewart magazine at the grocery store. You see three desserts you absolutely must try. You wave the PDA/camera in front of the magazine, and your shopping lists are automatically updated with all the ingredients necessary :)

Or perhaps you're reading your local city magazine, and your favorite concert venue is advertising their upcoming concert season. You wave the PDA in front of the ad, and instantly your calendar is updated with show dates, times and information.

Frankly, I would probably not use this at all. As much as I develop in the online technology arena, I tend to be a bit old fashioned in my use of personal technology. But I can see people finding this to be of interest...maybe. I think it would do much better in technology-advanced societies, like portions of Europe, Tokyo, etc.

I wonder who will write the first print-virus!

# Posted By Paul Hirsch | 2/18/07 10:38 AM

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