Using Image Recognition Software instead of Barcode Recognition

Nokia has just acquired a small startup called Pixto who developed an application for mobile devices that would take images captured by the camera on the mobile device, and bring up recognition options accordingly.  Nokia has began calling this technology Point & Find.  It works by letting people point a camera phone at an object or picture and find out more about it or buy it just by clicking once when options come up on the screen. It works by somehow linking certain image properties of the captured image with a URL for information about what’s in the image. When a user points the phone’s camera at something, the system compares what the viewfinder sees with sets of image properties in a database. Also taking into consideration the user’s location via image specific information or GPS, it then delivers useful information about what the person is looking at.

An example of this might be when a user sees a movie poster their interested in, while walking down the street.  They could point their camera phone and snap a shot of the movie poster, click a button, and a WAP site would be brought up with more information about when the movie is coming out, where it can be seen and times, as well as options to purchase tickets right there while standing in front of the poster that caught your eye.  By utilizing GPS sensors on the mobile phone, the WAP site the user is directed to can automatically be associated with the nearest theater to the user.  Another example was that a user could snap a picture of the street, and a page would automatically come up with contact information to the nearest cab company.

Here’s what I think.  This technology would definitely be more useful and intuitive than barcode recognition, simply because it wouldn’t rely solely on barcodes for data recognition.   Also, consumers could immediately start using this, instead of waiting for retailers,  and manufacturers to develop mainstream barcoding techniques.  The negatives I see are that mobile phone cameras will have to be high quality to take high resolution images enough for recognition.  Older VGA camera phones might not work as well, or slow down the recognition process by having to take numerous shots of the object.  We’ll have to see what happens as this technology evolves.

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