Monday, November 13, 2006

Try-on garments with semacodes!

A very interesting development in the barcode space. 
 
Imagine a user walks into a clothing store, walks up at a garment, and with a simple click on their phone visualises the garment on their Virtual Model.  The user then clicks clicks their phone again to purchase the garment - and walks out of the store using their existing "recycled" shopping bag to carry their legally purchased products home.
 
Introducing the "semacode"!  Place a semacode printed label on each garment and all the user has to do is take a picture with their camera phone.  Phones equiped with a small software to interpret the semacode will open up the phone's web browser and display the garment on the screen of the phone.  "Semacode works by embedding a URL (web address) into a sort of two-dimensional barcode which looks like a dense crossword puzzle (pictured) — called the tag. The SDK software contains the capability to detect and decode the tag very rapidly with the camera on your phone. It extracts the URL and sends you to that address using the phone's built-in browser. "
Here is an example:
 
I actually tried this with my phone (Nokia 60 series) and it worked like a charm.  Now the question remains, what URL link will retailers place on their garments?  Of course the right answer is a link to try-on the garment using My Virtual Model technology.
 
Read more about it here: