Microsoft’s TagReader Is Just Another QR Reader, Really?

Microsoft has released its second iPhone app called TagReader which is really just a reader for its own type of QR codes.  The problem is, it’s another type of code in an industry that’s still widely undeveloped and under-appreciated.  Why wouldn’t they just improve QR codes?  

Microsoft Tag is the software maker’s take on barcodes. Basically multicolored mobile barcodes can be applied to product packaging, advertising, points of sales and other points of interest. Tags are meant to be snapped by mobile phone users to retrieve more information. Paired with the accompanying tag reading software which recognizes shapes and turns them into query sent to Microsoft’s servers, the technology connects users to related online information, freeing him from having to type long URLs or texting shortcodes or launch browser.

With TagReader for iPhone, you can snap a tag using built-in camera on your handset to get linked interactive content. The application is pretty straightforward and it gets the job done. You simply center the barcode (filling about half the screen), tap the button to scan a tag, and, while holding your hand steady even after the click, press the “Use Photo” button to get the linked information. Since a camera is required for the operation, TagReader does not work on iPod touch. Things get really interesting when you create your own tag that links, for example, to your social profile on the web, blog entries or your contact details.

To marketers, tags provide a way to connect their brand in a physical world to personalized and interactive content on users’ cellphones. For instance, you can snap a tag of a restaurant in a print or online ad to get driving directions on your phone. Or, scan a tag on a movie poster to get trailer on your handset and local movie times. You can even put tags on your business cards to enable your contacts to easily get to your online profile and real estate listings and they are popping up in public places like bus stops where a tag on a route sign connects you to real-time schedule on your phone or the entire route map.

There’s most likely no tags anywhere that would make this app useful on a widespread basis.  The future doesn’t really look bright for the technology as well, so my question is why would Microsoft put so much stock into this, and even go as far as developing its own iPhone app.

Future: Image Recognition And Google Street View

I came across news of a company out of Europe who has perfected an image recognition technology that can actually pick out aspects of an image such as buildings, people, etc., and hyperlink them.  When associated with mobile devices, the possibilities are endless.  

The new system, dubbed “MOBVIS” can recognise individual buildings, for example, in a photo you take with your camera-phone.  It can then apply icons that hyperlink to information about the building.  Simply by looking at a picture, the system knows where you are and can tell what you are looking at.  If you’re like me, this sounds like something that would be perfect for Google’s Street View.  A lot of people have wondered what the point of Street View is and why Google would make such an investment out of capturing that much imagery.  

Beyond Google’s sheer desire to capture and organize the world’s information, Street View will enable yet another monetization platform for advertising and other future ventures.  The MOBVIS image recognition platform seems like a perfect example of something that would be perfect for Street View.  If all the imagery Google captures for Street View could be hyperlink and monetized, it would not only be very beneficial for Google, but also advertisers who want to capitalize on a new-age ultra-targeted form of mobile advertising.  

This integration is already being done actually.  One of the MOBVIS project’s partners, Tele Atlas, is already using the platform together with a fleet of vans to gather imagery to feed to the platform.  It’s just like Street View, but at its infancy.  If you ask me, it would have been easier and more beneficial to team with Google for testing.  Google will likely introduce their own image-recognition based solution for Street View on its own- that, or purchase a startup that’s already perfected it.  Either way, it’s pretty cool, and promising for the future of Street View and all that data.

The Future of Cloud Computing & Its Devices

The idea of cloud computing is late in getting here if you ask me.  The internet has been around for a long time storing tons of information, why hasn’t the processes we carry out on our desktop been moved online yet.  Slowly they are, finally.  I decided to take a look around at what going on in the world of Cloud Computing…

From Wikipedia: “Cloud computing is Internet-based (“cloud”) development and use of computer technology (“computing”). The cloud is a metaphor for the Internet, based on how it is depicted in computer network diagrams, and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals. It is a style of computing in which IT-related capabilities are provided “as a service”, allowing users to access technology-enabled services from the Internet (“in the cloud”) without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them. Cloud Computing is a paradigm in which information is permanently stored in servers on the Internet and cached temporarily on clients that include desktops, entertainment centers, tablet computers, notebooks, wall computers, handhelds, sensors, monitors, etc,

Cloud computing is a general concept that incorporates software as a service (SaaS), Web 2.0 and other recent, well-known technology trends, in which the common theme is reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users. For example, Google Apps provides common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.”

O’Reily had an interesting post about the future of cloud computing in what he calls “Utility Computing”…. “Amazon’s success in providing virtual machine instances, storage, and computation at pay-as-you-go utility pricing was the breakthrough in this category, and now everyone wants to play. Developers, not end-users, are the target of this kind of cloud computing.This is the layer at which I don’t presently see any strong network effect benefits (yet). Other than a rise in Amazon’s commitment to the business, neither early adopter Smugmug nor any of its users get any benefit from the fact that thousands of other application developers have their work now hosted on AWS. If anything, they may be competing for the same resources.