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The "Bokode"
- 7/29/2009The new system, called the Bokode (center in photo), is based on a new way of encoding visual information, explains Media Lab Associate Professor Ramesh Raskar, who leads the lab's Camera Culture group.. Data is encoded in the angular dimension: Rays of light coming from the new tags vary in brightness depending on the angle at which they emerge. "Almost no one seems to have used this method of encoding information,” Raskar says. "There have been three ways to encode information optically, and now we have a new one."
One of the advantages of the new labels is that unlike today's barcodes, they can be "read" from a few meters away. In addition, unlike the bar code scanners required to read today's labels, these can be read using any standard digital camera, including cell phone cameras.
As a replacement for conventional barcodes, the Bokode system could have several advantages, Mohan says. It could provide far more information (such as the complete nutrition label from a food product), be readable from a distance by a shopper scanning the supermarket shelves and allow easy product comparisons because several items near each other on the shelves could all be scanned at once.
The prototype devices produced at the Media Lab currently cost about $5 each, most of that cost due to use of an off-the-shelf convex glass lens, but Raskar says that price could easily drop to 5 cents once they are produced even in volumes of a few hundred units.
Read the full story at mit.edu.
Photo courtesy of Media Lab Camera Culture group.
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