Son of CueCat? Purdue Professor Embeds Hyperlinks 94
rbook writes "Remember :CueCat, the "free" (as in beer) bar code scanner that was supposed to change everything by allowing advertisers (or whoever) to put hyperlinks in printed material? Well, the idea is back, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education: 'People who prefer print books over e-books may still want extra digital material to go with them. That's the idea behind Sorin Matei's project, Ubimark, which embeds books with two-dimensional codes that work as hyperlinks when photographed.' Photographing an image and uploading it sounds like more trouble than scanning a bar code to follow a URL, but they figure you can take the photograph with your smartphone and view the web page automatically on the mobile device." It looks like standard QR codes are embedded; what Ubimark is pushing is "a publishing environment which combines print books, ubilinks, a centralized Internet based interactive information repository and computer displays."
Yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)
...if you (like myself and my fiancee) are one of the few people out there that still appreciate dead-tree books, you are also likely one of those people that won't give a fuck about something like this.
What's the value add here? (Score:3, Insightful)
*yawn* Guy takes standard QR codes, markets them against his specific web properties and/or mobile apps. Even the most steadfast of print publishers have cottoned on to the web by now. I have trouble imagining (and the ubimark site doesn't help) why a publisher would use this "platform" instead of just dropping in QR codes with URLs for the usual publisher-presented online offerings?
Re:Fail (Score:1, Insightful)
Little bit of faulty logic there. What's the point of printing out a big barcode so that people can decode it with their computers? If they're using their computers anyway they could just download the book.
The whole idea in TFA is similarly stupid. The only conceivable reason for using barcodes is to make sure that the premium content only goes to people who bought the book, and to assign a unique ID in each barcode. How is the consumer supposed to get excited about this? All it is for the consumer is an extra artificial step to protect the publisher. It also deprives them of resale rights.
Re:What's the value add here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. This "technology" is all over Japan. 90% of advertisements use them. 95% of phones can read them. Stores and venues even have devices to read them off of your phones LCD so you can use ones you find on the web as coupons. This is old tech, and old news.
Re:Yeah... (Score:3, Insightful)
In the last Musician's Friend catalog, I noticed these embedded code-looking thingies that send you to a YouTube video of the guitar or keyboard or whatever being used if you simply take a picture with your mobile phone. I didn't bother, and I don't imagine most people are bothering.
But still, if it enhances advertising, you can bet we're going to see these things everywhere soon. It used to be pron that drove tech innovation, but make no mistake, it's now marketing that's driving the bus.
Re:Fail (Score:2, Insightful)
Little bit of faulty logic there. What's the point of printing out a big barcode so that people can decode it with their computers?
I was thinking more along the lines of something which can be scanned by cellphone or other portable computer. Every piece of machinery that I come in contact with can have it's own MAN page. How do you solve this rubick's cube? Scan its 2d barcode. How do you properly sharpen this knife? Scan its 2d barcode. What's the proper PSI for this automobile tire? Scan the 2d barcode and read all about its proper maintenance. What should I know about this pack of condoms? Scan the 2d barcode for some tips & tricks.
It'd be very cyberpunk, and wouldn't require an active internet connection. A quick scan of a densely packed barcode and you can have all the information about something that you want. We would just need it to be on the order of kilobytes as opposed to bytes.
Doomed (Score:3, Insightful)
If you've been watching the content business for a while, you get used to these things. Someone at the content-provider end of the business comes up with something that would be very beneficial to them while offering negligible benefits to the consumer, and then they spend a tremendous amount of energy trying to convince consumers that it's a good idea despite consumers' plainly seeing that it would be a pain in the ass with little or no reward. The :CueCat is, of course, the canonical example, but there are many more links in the chains of the Ghost of Stupid Business Plans Past.
The best thing about this plan is that it's plainly aimed at traditionalists who don't care for the web, but what it offers them is an awkward way to get the web content they don't actually want on a tiny screen they probably don't even have, probably while bombarding them with advertising and collecting data about their reading and browsing habits. What's not to like?
Re:Fail (Score:2, Insightful)
No, the fail here is morons still trying to use barcodes, QR codes, etc. when a simple hyperlink will suffice, look less retarded, take less space, be human-readable, etc.