Man, this is the coolest thing I discovered this month.
Before what I am going to show you now, the only ways to transfer data from your computer to your mobile device was to send an e-mail to yourself and read it in your cell, or through bluetooth, or infrared.
There is a new thing (for me) called Mobile Codes (or QR Codes according to Wikipedia, or Datamatrix) that combined with your mobile’s camera and simple software, will let you actually read the content from your computer screen.
OK, lets explain it with some images to make the concept more user-friendly. Look at the following image.
Yes, I know the image says nothing to you, but your camara-equiped mobile device is able to read “Think Open :: Think Linux”.
We can play with more stuff. The URL for this blog post is here (with a note attached):
Lets add some semantics. You can directly call an international number as 00551112345678 using the following barcode:
Or SMS “Hi, I just discovered this barcodes that will make my life easier” to same number with this code:
The Details
Some modern Nokia phones already come with the software needed to decode this datamatrix. For my Nokia E61i to work, I installed on it a free (registration required) program called Kaywa Reader (their site doesn’t list my model so I selected E65 and it worked fine). So I just shoot the software, point my mobile’s camera to the datamatrix and it instantly decodes the content.
To generate this images, I used the QR Code Generator by Winksite and the Nokia mobile code generator. In fact it all started when I found the Nokia Mobile Code website, almost by an accident.
Oh, and there is a handy Mobile Barcoder Firefox plugin to help me transfer URLs from browser to cellphone.
Install in your cellphone and have fun.