Shotcodes As Mobile Barcodes

I mentioned about mobile barcodes last week, and that the BBC is supporting them.

This week, I came across another mobile barcode technology called Shotcode.

Shotcodes are round barcodes that can be photographed using the camera built into a series 60 phone from any angle.

Once the code has been photographed, the Shotcode application opens an internet connection to translate the shotcode into a URL. This means the data encoded in the Shotcode is smaller than the real URL, a mobile barcode equivalent of TinyURL.com I guess. The downside is it always needs a network connection, but if you're scanning a URL, you probably want to visit the site anyway.

The Shotcode application can be downloaded here if you have a series 60 smartphone.

If you need a Shotcode to test, here's one here encodes the URL for this lovely website