Yesterday barcode is today bokode

MIT researchers have developed a new standard, called Bokode, which would enable you to use your phone to access a slew of info about a product on the shelf. The system was invented by a team led by Ramesh Raskar of the MIT Media Lab's Camera Culture group, who'll be presenting next month in New Orleans at SIGGRAPH (the leading confab for display technology and interface design). Rather than being a simple flat image, like a barcode or a QR code, it uses a light beam, whose brightness and angle are encoded with information. The tag itself is tiny--about the size of the @ symbol in a keyboard. But it contains thousands of bits of data. Currently, the tags comprise a lens and an LED-light source, and each one costs $5. But the price should fall below a nickle a pop, by using holograms of the sort you see on credit cards. Rather than requiring a special laser for reading, the Bokode can be read by any digital camera, and from several feet away. Via MIT press release