Bar codes to enable item reviews
2006-02-15 14:47
Tokyo - Checking out the internet buzz about a DVD, book or candy while on the go will become as easy as taking a snapshot of the bar code on the product.
Toshiba Corp, a Japanese electronics company that makes DVD players, laptops and nuclear power plants, has developed mobile-phone technology that searches for product reviews on up to 100 web journals, or blogs, in 10 seconds.
Just use the phone's digital camera to snap a photo of the bar code of a product you're thinking about buying.
The technology can decipher if the blog chatter is positive or negative and tallies the count to show if a product is getting rave reviews or being trashed by consumers. That's useful if you're in a store about to buy an item.
Some of the more frequently visited blogs will also show up on the screen.
The bar-code information is sent wirelessly to a Toshiba server, which gathers data on blogs from the internet and analyses them, and then sends a reply back to the cell phone.
Toshiba expects to have information on thousands of products covering just about anything you might buy at a store - from toys to electronic gadgets to food.
Toshiba plans to test the software at Japanese stores next month and hopes to offer it as a service on cell phones before April 2007, although details aren't decided.
Blog searches and bar codes that link to webpages are already available on personal computers and portable devices, but Toshiba officials say their technology is convenient for shopping because it's for cell phones and carries out real-time blog searches from bar-codes.
- AP