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Innovation Fund LLC ( ), which already has patents issued in the field of Location Based Advertising, has been developing proposals to go to the leaders in the field, which include Microsoft, Google, and Time Warner, as well as the telecom companies. The Innovation Fund basic patent has been granted and there are continuations-in-part that are current. In making the determination to present a proposal for exclusivity to Microsoft first, Innovation Fund was obviously aware of Google rsquo;s openly stated objectives to WiFi cities in exchange for location based advertising.

The Innovation Fund patents quite some time ago envisioned the fact that people not only can be located by geopositioning but contacted, changing the face of retailing. Shopping malls, restaurants, entertainment venues and the travel industry will be able to give consumers great bargains on items that otherwise would lose value. Tickets to a game that is not sold out can be directed to a passing car making the customer an lsquo;offer he can rsquo;t refuse, rsquo; rdquo;

SwiftOCR software provides high-speed optical character recognition (OCR) of capital letters, numbers and punctuation for area-imaging devices used primarily for established format applications such as reading passport and ISBN codes. SwiftVerify easily integrates with any Windows or embedded platform and turns any document scanner, fixed-area imager or hand-held imager into a bar code verifier They are the best-kept secret of the business world: a whole new breed of C-suite managers who wear titles such as chief marketing officer, director, design and brand experience, or the voguish new moniker chief innovation officer. Patrick Whitney believes that companies today face an innovation gap.

They have the tools of technology to make virtually anything, but lack the tools of empathy to understand what consumers really want. Filling this gap is the task at hand. It is also the sweet spot for top-line growth and high-margin profit.

When outsourcing to China and India is universal, when creeping commoditization of products, services, and information hammers prices, innovation is the new currency of competition. It is the key to organic growth, the lever to widen profit margins, the Holy Grail of 21st century business Some for where innovation will be key. Under the terms of the agreement, Shanghai Fang Lai will market and sell Veritec products in China, and translate Veritec software products for use in China.

Mr Zhou of SHanghai Fang stated We believe Veritec s VSCode and VeriCode Multi- Dimensional Symbologies will become the standard matrix symbols for ported applications in the future. It never hurts to have a big name VC like sponsoring innovative mobile ideas. Whereas certain initiatives pursue this aim primarily by condemning retail offerings that are potential health hazards, Codecheck takes a different approach: it helps consumers decipher the product rsquo;s barcode.

The way this works is as simple as can be. The result is the creation of a reference work that is constantly being expanded and updated with contributions from manufacturers, wholesale distributors, specialized labs, consumer organizations and individual consumers. Potential purchasers thus have access to a wide variety of information, opinions and reports, a body of knowledge that constitutes a solid basis on which to form an opinion about a particular product.

Plans are currently in the works to enhance this system by building in mobility. For example, a shopper in a supermarket could use his/her cell phone rsquo;s camera to photograph a product rsquo;s barcode and then send this image as an MMS to codecheck.ch, and the relevant information would immediately be transmitted back.

By linking up diverse technologies (photography, Internet, telecommunications) in this way, Codecheck represents a step in the direction of well-informed consumers. The company tells their story, I highlighted the points I found of interest. As a company, Cobblestone Software regards itself as the true pioneer of the concept of hyperlinking the physical world using bar codes .

Cobblestone was incorporated in March of 1995, and, to the best of our knowledge, is, by a good distance, the first company formed with print-to-digital-world as its express goal, where a key part of that concept was print-to-internet. As early as 1996, in a paper and presentation delivered at a US Postal Service conference, we had described our revolutionary concept of hyperlinking the world of printed media, and more generally the physical world, to the web and other resources. It is, so far as we are aware, the first such public description of this powerful idea.

Cobblestone s licensed its technology to Mitigo (formed in 2001), which, we believe, was the first company formed to target the camera phone print-to-internet market. As many pioneering companies do, Mitigo essentially ran out of money before the market could develop -- but Cobblestone now retains full rights to our technology in this market. Cobblestone has also been targeting data heavy applications -- that is, applications that require a great deal of information to be stored on paper.

For example, Cobblestone has licensed its technology to DeLaRue, the premier passport company in the world, for use in SecureIDs, encoding biometric information in a barcode of many kilobytes. It has worked in the past at some length with Kodak, and is also now working with other major companies in other industries. Cobblestone, at this stage, is deliberating whether or not to enter on its own into the mobile market, to license its IP and technology, or to sell its assets in this area .

We ve developed technology that works robustly on a large variety of camera phones, and can in principle work on ANY camera phone, no matter its optics. We have versions that work on the Smartphone, but also on the Nokia 6680, 3650, and 7650. On the Nokia phones, for example, we have implemented an API that would allow people pretty much to encode, on a desktop, whatever they may want into a code, and then decode that code on the phone to do whatever they may choose to do.

Cobblestone has already been granted three basic patents 6,098,882, 6,176,427, and 6,820,807, and has a number of others still in progress. One of these patents, 6,820,807, clearly covers the basic concept of using bar codes as physical world hyperlinks , a breadth that is unsurprising given our own priority as the pioneering company in this space. In fact, for example, here are the first two claims of the patent: 1.

A method of accessing data comprising: producing digital instructions for accessing data, formatting into a pattern the series of digital data values representing said digital instructions for accessing data, distributing the pattern of formatted digital data, decoding the pattern of formatted digital data, and activating the digital instructions for accessing data, whereby the data is accessed. 2. The method of accessing data of claim 1 wherein said digital instructions for accessing data consists of hyperlinks to information extraneous to said formatted digital data.

While interpreting claims is always a tricky business, and must be understood in the light of the description, it s pretty obvious that on its face these claims would comprehend, at minimum, ANY use of bar codes as hyperlinks to the digital world, the web most obviously; even the term, hyperlink , is used explicitly. And the description in the patent itself, along with the descriptions in our other patent applications, makes it quite evident that the generalized notion of hyperlinking the physical world to the web, and more generally the digital world, was being clearly envisioned. Cobblestone s emphasis was on 2D codes from its inception, because we believed that, over time, 2D codes would inevitably win the technology war as imagers became cheaper and more powerful.

In fact, this has clearly proven to be true in the mobile market among others: any camera phone very naturally can handle our 2D code, but typically requires special macro, or add-on, lenses to do standard 1D codes; moreover, for new consumer applications, our 2D code requires vastly less space. So not only was Cobblestone the first company out with the concept of print-to-internet, it was first to recognize the crucial role of 2D codes in the emerging market. We believe that our IP backing up our concept is very strong, and the early priority dates should allow us full freedom to pursue this market, or to so enable anyone to whom we may sell or license the technology and IP.

Who has 75 million, ideal demographic users and one of the most visited sites on the Internet? The owner of this site may be with a search engine, but has he ever thought of really leveraging this powerful portal? Rupert, here s what you do .

Provide a free 2d code generating application on the MySpace home page. Call it MyCode or something catchy. Let the users create codes for URLs, text messages, phone numbers (and I m sure the kids will find other innovative ideas).

Find a 2d code scanning application for a camera phone that is compatible with as many phones as possible . There s your service provider opportunity..

hint hint. Now let the kids/users decide what they want to click on, don t force mobile advertising down their throats. With 75 million potential users, the MyCode could become the standard 2d code .

Advertisers will cater to these users and put the MyCode on their advertising.Instead of having consumers download a code scanning app to win some free fries, the advertiser can place a MyCode on THEIR advertising to get interest. Let advertisers adapt to consumers, not the other way around.

In my opinion, you re going to have to give away a truckload of french fries to make PWC work the way it s being done now. Abaxia, a physical world connection has found a great way to get people to scan a datamatrix code using their camera phone for more information. Kelly Clarkson, Shakira or any of the big name music artists could create a viral campaign that would get a code reading application on a mobile phone.

, a leading specialist in embedded mobile software solutions, is set to take the music industry by storm with its new technology, by including a MobileTag voucher with every copy of leading French singer Garou s new CD, released on June 12th. When scanned with a camera-phone, the Tag will give Garou fans the chance to win an exclusive meeting with the artist during his show in Paris in November. Sony BMG is happy to be able to promote and strengthen the image of its artists through the use of new technologies such as MobileTag.

This technology offers new opportunities of privileged exchange between the artist and his public, says Christophe Waignier, Executive Vice President, Sony BMG. Here s an , why doesn t Sony offer to sell/create a 2d code for all of their artists on their packaging? The has already come to the attention of Orange, who tested it at the end 2005, and Nokia, who took part to the launching of the application in France on its 60 series handsets.

I see this type of mobile marketing campaign having so much more traction, and catering more to the consumer, than getting a free box of fries from a burger chain. Think of all of the possibilities SONY and the artist could follow up with.

The server will then take the bar code, will interpret it, will match it against an online price matching service, and then send you back a message. The Scanbuy Shopper also works by just punching in the bar code number, instead of taking a picture so you don t need a camera phone. Scanbuy searches sites like and to find you the best deal.

From the total of 300 people, 234 of them, or 78%, used their camera once a month or more. Q1: Please tell me all the things you use your mobile phone camera for. (Sample size=234, multiple answer) American Idol did a great job of introducing text messaging to the masses, maybe Kelly Clarkson could put 2d codes on her marketing material.

This is a coporate use of PWC, but it looks like Sprint is serious about being the first provider to offer physical world connection to consumers. Leveraging an existing relationship with Sprint Nextel Corp., Konica Minolta has integrated AirClic MP and with already deployed Sprint Nextel wireless phones to gain real-time insight into the details of service calls performed by over 1,300 technicians working on office reproduction and printing equipment.

I wonder they got this application on existing phones.By mobilizing its field service business processes, Konica Minolta can track information associated with actual time spent on completing a service call, parts or supplies used and the status of every machine that is worked on. There were a number of mobile solutions on the market; however, none could map our existing field process as closely and be deployed as quickly and easily as AirClic, said Ed Hoyer, Director, National Customer Support Center, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.

S.A. User adoption was virtually immediate and the ability to rapidly make adjustments to the workflow has been invaluable.

Our existing investment in Sprint continues to pay off with their partner recommendation of AirClic. Have you noticed how the list is growing faster in the last couple months? I have said many times that this space is too big for just a couple players.

is an OS-independent, small code-size OCR development toolkit specially designed for creating OCR solutions running on mobile devices or in instant OCR applications. It can be integrated into any mobile application or platform including Windows Mobile, Symbian, and LINUX, as well as into PC utilities. With OCR on a mobile phone, photos of business cards can be converted in to text for direct storage into phone books.

Clippings from magazines or other documents can be converted and sent via email or SMS. The quicker consumers are able to create their own 2d codes and scan them , the quicker we can see what other applications (besides price comparison) will be adopted.

They also provided a mobile ticketing campaign for Las Vegas Monorail Square in shape and made up of a pattern of smaller black squares, they are replacing with greater frequency the 1D barcodes found on cereal boxes and scanned in supermarkets everywhere. 2D Data Matrix barcodes are much more compact, can contain far more encrypted information, and are less likely to be misread. In other words, it s able to send more information in a smaller space more reliably with greater security and accuracy See why 2D codes will be adopted first?

Google BarCode would even add in the cost of time and gas and only show those products which were lower overall. In a twist on the system, merchants would be automatically informed if you located cheaper products and could then bid for your business by offering you an electronic coupon, a discount on the product in their store if you bought it in the next say, half hour. Nathan Weinberg, at WebProNews has and why Google should take advantage of Scanbuy.

I am an investor in Scanbuy, and have, on occasion, an advisor. The reason: I see so much untapped potential in this space, (I agree Nathan) providing a cheaper, more secure and easier system than RFID, and I hope to see someone do some great things with it. Certainly, Google s the type of company to develop some powerful mobile applications that involve camera phone pattern recognition, and could at the very least use it to improve their current mobile offerings, like Froogle Comparison shopping engine vendors have developed new services to support wireless devices, such as cell phones.

and have developed such features and comparison shopping engineers are reportedly ready to incorporate them into their services. Microsoft just scooped up Third Screen Media for their mobile advertising platform, I wonder if Bill has his eyes on any of I rsquo;m at the Wall Street Journal rsquo;s , where Bill Gates was talking last evening about the future of mobile phones that handle many other functions including video, writing, etc. He referred to these gadgets as mdash; I rsquo;m not joking mdash; ldquo; Reality Acquisition Devices rdquo; that will, if I understood him correctly, be used to connect digitally to various stuff, such as using the phone to read product bar codes to learn more about the product.

I think he was referring to Microsoft s or their recently introduced application. Both applications involve scanning an image or code (barcode) via camera phone to information on the Internet. Vinod Khosla, Founder, Partner of and sponsor of the Carnival of the Mobilists, will be speaking.

It might not be MyClick, but the concept of linking the physical world to the Internet using a physical world hyperlink, in my opinion, will produce First, they modify a QR code to make it unique for their resolving function. They are also getting the advertisers pick up the tab for consumers to adopt this application. A number of leading advertisers will subsidise costs for consumers interacting with them via mobile phone, as part of a major push to develop the mobile as a marketing medium.

The software will enable owners of GPRS and 3G phones to browse advertiser WAP sites through their phones without having to pay any charges to the mobile phone operators. These fees will be paid instead by the advertiser, based on the number of times people use the software to access the site. Advertisers will pay for consumers to use their wireless data plan?

works on similar lines to QR codes currently deployed in Japan, China and Taiwan, where users use their to take a picture of a special symbol, giving them online access to a special WAP site. Rather than a symbol, however, MyClick software recognises a that advertisers can use as a border for an image. It is up to advertisers to come up with new, innovative ideas to stimulate people to take action, If we work together, we can then create a wave of adoption and understanding.

said an official who relates in this matter. The irony here is that the concept of linking the physical world to the Internet is being called the next killer app, and yet PC World just listed the CueCat (the same principle) as being one of the of all time. Peter Hanami, who lives in Tokyo, has a of a McDonalds cheeseburger wrapper with QR, (2D) codes on it.

It shows that brands are recognizing that 2d codes are the of choice for now. But what else could they do with that wrapper and a 2d code? Ex.

Download the McDonald s McCoder and scan a 2d code for free fries on your next visit. This would be one easy way to get the 2d code scanning application on the phone. The idea I have is that McDonald s COULD SELL interactive mobile advertising on all of those wrappers.

McDonald s is making their locations Wi-Fi enabled, see the possibilities? At Haneda, passengers can order a ticket online via the internet and the airline will send a barcode by SMS to the customer. According to ANA, passengers will need just eight seconds to check-in compared to the usual two minutes for passengers who check-in at the gate.

Already 70 percent of passengers at Haneda use these electronic tickets.