Hewlett-Packard and Publicis have called a meeting to encourage the development of standards for 2D barcodes, reports FT. Attendees will include Nokia, Ericsson, Vodafone and Deutsche Telecom, and the intent is to reach agreement on basic standards within a year. The technology is already in use in Japan and Sth Korea, but is held back in other countries due to a more competitive mobile communications market, according to HP research Tim Kindberg. “It’s been on the verge of happening for some time now – the technology is there, but the problem is the fragmentation in the market.” I’ll agree with that—the number of different mobile-readable 2D barcodes is bordering on the ludicrous.
Beyond advertising and all that Charles Fritz, chairman of NeoMedia, whose technology is being used by HP and Publicis, also talks about an “internet of things”, where the mobile barcode technology would “create extensive links between the physical and the electronic worlds”.
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