The folks over at Social Innovation Camp have come up with a bright idea. They want to “Create a site for storing user generated information to be stored against a product, identified by its barcode number. People would be able to access the info by entering/scanning the barcode number. The kind of information that would be stored against the product would be things like reviews, manufacturing conditions, news stories about the product/manufacturer, farm subsidies paid to the manufacturer etc. All entered in wiki form by end users.” Check out their web site for more information.
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Choosing Wine Cellar Accessories
Barcode readers are a wonderful way to keep track of the different wines that are added to or removed from your wine cellar. “But what kinds of electronic barcode reading contraptions will I need to buy in order to use a barcode system?”, you may ask. It’s really very simple. There are very easy to use plug and play barcode readers that can plug right into the USB port of your computer.
USB barcode scanners typical run between $120-$175 USD and can automatically discriminate between all the popular bar codes. You can use your own barcode tags or input any required information to use the barcodes already located on each bottle of wine. When it’s time to uncork or add a new bottle of wine to your collection, simply point the barcode scanner at the barcode label and pull the trigger to update your records.
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USB barcode scanners typical run between $120-$175 USD and can automatically discriminate between all the popular bar codes. You can use your own barcode tags or input any required information to use the barcodes already located on each bottle of wine. When it’s time to uncork or add a new bottle of wine to your collection, simply point the barcode scanner at the barcode label and pull the trigger to update your records.
read more
Monday, April 14, 2008
Ideas for Interoperability of Secure Barcode Tickets
Barcode ticket security is a growing issue (we get asked about it all the time) and there aren't any standards yet for preventing unscrupulous individuals from altering the tickets that are issued.
Barcodes are being used as a form of virtual ticket that you can print from your PC at home or show on your phone screen to gain access to airport check-in, bus tickets, train tickets, promotional coupons, to gain access to a venue or be entitled to something valuable.
What do we want to achieve?
Barcode tickets that can be used to allow a virtual transaction, such as on a PC or a mobile phone to provide an instant ticket to the customer, with which they can instantly prove entitlement at a venue.
Ideally, to get the largest acceptance of barcode tickets, the designers of venue ticket systems should be free to integrate the ticket validation in whatever hardware or software they want to, and without any onerous security requirements - that way whatever cash registers (tills/EPOS), handheld scanners or gate systems that a venue uses can be used at their convenience.
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Monday, April 7, 2008
Ticket Text - Competition for TicketMaster for Irish consumers?
A couple of weeks ago, there was a press release from the company Ticket Text covered in both the Irish Examiner and the Irish Independent. According to the article:
The credit card-based service is currently offering tickets for various events including the Punchestown National Hung Festival, the Arts Festival and a number of top music concerts.
To me, the Ticket Text service is a great new concept – you buy your tickets online, and they arrive to your phone by text, with a barcode. You then just bring your phone to the gig and the barcode is read to allow you entry. Those who’ve recently visited Croke Park will be familiar by now with the ticket barcode scanner – though I’m sure it’s elsewhere by now also.
The big selling point (apart from the obvious convenience) is that Ticket Text claim to “save you money by never charging postage & packaging fees, plus we always keep our booking fees low”. According to the Irish Examiner article,
Ticket Text’s chief executive Mark McLaughlin said Ireland was the first place the company identified a demand for an alternative ticketing provider.
So, do we have an alternative to the much-maligned TicketMaster? Unfortunately, that I can discover after doing a bit of investigaton, Ticket Text are not going to disrupt the stranglehold that TicketMaster have over Irish ticket-buying consumers.
As a check, I went to buy 2 adult tickets for Ireland v Columbia in London coming up soon. And would you believe it – there is no comparison to be made. You can buy one sort of ticket on the Ticket Text site (home fans = Irish Fans), and on the TicketMaster site, you can only buy away fan (Columbian fans) tickets. So, for the same game, you can't buy the same ticket on both sites.
The credit card-based service is currently offering tickets for various events including the Punchestown National Hung Festival, the Arts Festival and a number of top music concerts.
To me, the Ticket Text service is a great new concept – you buy your tickets online, and they arrive to your phone by text, with a barcode. You then just bring your phone to the gig and the barcode is read to allow you entry. Those who’ve recently visited Croke Park will be familiar by now with the ticket barcode scanner – though I’m sure it’s elsewhere by now also.
The big selling point (apart from the obvious convenience) is that Ticket Text claim to “save you money by never charging postage & packaging fees, plus we always keep our booking fees low”. According to the Irish Examiner article,
Ticket Text’s chief executive Mark McLaughlin said Ireland was the first place the company identified a demand for an alternative ticketing provider.
So, do we have an alternative to the much-maligned TicketMaster? Unfortunately, that I can discover after doing a bit of investigaton, Ticket Text are not going to disrupt the stranglehold that TicketMaster have over Irish ticket-buying consumers.
As a check, I went to buy 2 adult tickets for Ireland v Columbia in London coming up soon. And would you believe it – there is no comparison to be made. You can buy one sort of ticket on the Ticket Text site (home fans = Irish Fans), and on the TicketMaster site, you can only buy away fan (Columbian fans) tickets. So, for the same game, you can't buy the same ticket on both sites.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMB) Basics
As more details regarding the USPS’ plans for the Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMB) are available, it is possible to start deciding how it will effect you, and planning how to use it.
Originally, the plan was to force the mailing industry to drop the old Postnet bar code and change over to the IMB in January 2009. Even though they have adjusted their schedule, you should begin planning. There are already many benefits you may wish to take advantage of. Currently, you can continue using Postnet until May 2010. It will still receive the base Automation discounts available with “Basic” IMB. “Full Service” IMB will receive an extra discount beginning in May 2009.
We’ll pause here for some definitions. Postnet is the old postal bar code that’s been around for years. This is the pattern of tall and short bars underneath the address, or down in the lower right corner. If you wanted to do tracking, you could also add a Planet bar code. This looked the same, but was usually placed on top of the address. If you wanted to use ACS (Address Correction Service), more codes, in text, had to be placed above the address. If this sounds ugly and crowded, it was. A lot of people avoided these advanced services for that reason alone. Here is an example address with Postnet, ACS and Planet codes. It’s not the sort of thing designers like to see on their artwork.
The Intelligent Mail Barcode has been in development for a while now, but has only recently started appearing on letters. It looks similar to Postnet, but has bars that go both up and down. It was originally called the 4-state bar code, and is now being renamed to the OneCode. Here is the same example address, with the same services, using the IMB.
more info
Originally, the plan was to force the mailing industry to drop the old Postnet bar code and change over to the IMB in January 2009. Even though they have adjusted their schedule, you should begin planning. There are already many benefits you may wish to take advantage of. Currently, you can continue using Postnet until May 2010. It will still receive the base Automation discounts available with “Basic” IMB. “Full Service” IMB will receive an extra discount beginning in May 2009.
We’ll pause here for some definitions. Postnet is the old postal bar code that’s been around for years. This is the pattern of tall and short bars underneath the address, or down in the lower right corner. If you wanted to do tracking, you could also add a Planet bar code. This looked the same, but was usually placed on top of the address. If you wanted to use ACS (Address Correction Service), more codes, in text, had to be placed above the address. If this sounds ugly and crowded, it was. A lot of people avoided these advanced services for that reason alone. Here is an example address with Postnet, ACS and Planet codes. It’s not the sort of thing designers like to see on their artwork.
The Intelligent Mail Barcode has been in development for a while now, but has only recently started appearing on letters. It looks similar to Postnet, but has bars that go both up and down. It was originally called the 4-state bar code, and is now being renamed to the OneCode. Here is the same example address, with the same services, using the IMB.
more info
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