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There are plenty of barcode scanning apps, the best probably being RedLaser ( http://redlaser.com/ ).
They use Redlaser's SDK.
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QR codes are just an embedded block of text. They can also redirect you to a URL, so in that case, it's just a shortcut to typing. Stickybits allows you to actually write to barcodes (effectively using the barcode as just a pointer to lots of media) No easy way to do this with QR and be social. Unless you set up a website. No marketing, just want to use codes and attach digital content to real world objects.
No easy way to host digital media without setting up a website? Are you serious?
Shame the Android app is Android 2.0+ only, which means I'm unable to try it with my Hero, at least for the moment.
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QR codes are just an embedded block of text. They can also redirect you to a URL, so in that case, it's just a shortcut to typing. Stickybits allows you to actually write to barcodes (effectively using the barcode as just a pointer to lots of media) No easy way to do this with QR and be social. Unless you set up a website. No marketing, just want to use codes and attach digital content to real world objects.
Unless I'm misunderstanding things, Stickbits is that website. You just chose to use your own barcodes instead of QR codes for some reason.
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Well, from a business perspective, if you're a company with equipment (medical, electronics, tools, etc) you could have employee "check out" equipment with their phones. If you're a company that works with documents (engineering, legal, what have you) you could attach barcodes to physical copies (shoot, you could overlay them on the digital ones to so they print off with the doc itself) and use them to easily pull up…
That's what we do (track medical devices, pallets, documents, etc., with barcodes and RFID). The biggest barrier by far for this market is the status-quo: if you have to add even a few steps to employees’ current workflow, the project will have a much harder time getting off the ground.
Hasn't this sort of thing been in production for years with UPS/WalMart/etc?
i think the concept is kinda weak. i'd use a QR code with a link to a wiki page, if that's what this is. so they're proposing a wiki page for each unique bar code... that smells like wikipedia, but i don't see "business value" in it. that site looks like they're trying to market something, which means that they're trying to make money with this. i can't imagine how that's supposed to work.
Of course anyone could whip up a free QR code that encodes a URL to your website/webapp/wiki/whatever and get the same thing more or less, but YOU must get the code and put the it on a sticker, YOU must build the wiki, YOU must integrate twitter/foursquare/facebook/geocoding, etc). That sounds like a fun project actually, but a normal company wanting that will have to put up big bucks to a developer to make the system. With stickybits, you buy some (overpriced) stickers, and all the features I described above are available to users with a complexity equivalent to texting. So, this concept is anything BUT weak. Simplifying a process is really, really important. When the iPod first came out, there were a lot of technically better options, but the iPod/iTunes combo was so easy to use that it crushed the competition. The cool factor was there too, and I don't know if barcodes will ever be considered cool, but that's another thread.
As far as making money...of course they will try to make money. It's a company, not a non-profit. I presume the money is in the data, much like bit.ly. Stickybits will be able to see who is scanning what codes, and where that's all happening. That information is ultra-valuable to any company trying to sell or promote something. In fact, I would not be surprised one bit if the prices of those sticker packages approach zero, because the real value is in gathering data, not selling stickers, and free stickers will help the userbase grow faster so a competitor doesn't steal their lunch.
The biggest hurdle would be getting people to adopt the stickybits app, or more generally getting other apps to adopt the stickybits API. The advantage of QR codes is that the format is standardized and widely adopted (well, relatively speaking). The best use-case would be using a QR code when encodes your company's website or whatever (NOT a stickybit code), but then scan that code with stickybits to add the cool social features. Then you hit all audiences: stickybit app users get to see the social comments and check-ins, while the information degrades gracefully for standard QR readers still can understand the underlying URL.
(Billy, I think it would be great if the stickybits app was able to decode QR codes and show that data, instead of only showing comments and the title. I guess currently you'd make a QR code, scan it with stickbits and, from the app, set the title and first comment to the content encoded in the QR code.)
i think the concept is kinda weak. i'd use a QR code with a link to a wiki page, if that's what this is. so they're proposing a wiki page for each unique bar code... that smells like wikipedia, but i don't see "business value" in it. that site looks like they're trying to market something, which means that they're trying to make money with this. i can't imagine how that's supposed to work.
EDIT: Quite ironically... they use a QR code on the Android download page! http://www.stickybits.com/android/ QR codes for the win! Seems like the Android world has really latched onto this... with the iPhone kind of not so much. You can store a lot more data in a QR code. There are some handy tools for a common Android workflow which is, I'm at home and I need to bail real fast to catch a bus or head out, but I want…
Agreed.
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They use Redlaser's SDK.
True. In fact we're working more closely with Stickybits to do more than just license them the RedLaser SDK. Stay tuned for more on that.
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That's what we do (track medical devices, pallets, documents, etc., with barcodes and RFID). The biggest barrier by far for this market is the status-quo: if you have to add even a few steps to employees’ current workflow, the project will have a much harder time getting off the ground.
You could implement this sort of tracking in a very non-intrusive way with RFID: put an RFID scanner in the supply room, which reads the employees' and equipments' RFID tags such that the monitoring system knows that employee X left room Y with equipment Z. Hasn't this sort of thing been in production for years with UPS/WalMart/etc?
Also, RFID as a commercialized technology is still relatively new (even though it's been around for a long time), and there are a lot of technical hurdles that most people don’t know about. For example, a standard, Wal-Mart style RFID tag won't read if you hold it close to the body (or put it in a pocket), or put it on metal or liquid; in those cases, you have to use a special tag, or a battery assisted tag ("active rfid", which can be much more expensive), or an "RTLS" tag (wifi, ultra-wideband, etc). It's all really interesting (to me anyway), but the industry has had to spend quite a bit of time getting over all of the hurdles that are non-obvious (like any industry I suppose).
Just as a heads up, www.stickybits.com is blocked by default in the NETGEAR UTM25. It is classified as a "pornograph/sexually explicit" web site. If any Stickybits people read this, you may want to bug them (Netgear) about clearing your name.