ActiveShopper Mobile Edition
Shelron Group which owns ActiveShopper recently released a press release which stated:
During Q1 of 2005 both parties have signed a letter of intent to enter into a licensing agreement, where the agreement will give Shelron worldwide rights to use and license NeoMedia’s PaperClick® technology and patents in an ActiveShopper(TM) Mobile Edition for cell phones and PDAs.
I finally got a chance to look at the NeoMedia technology, PaperClick. From the PaperClick.com web site:
PaperClick can read alphanumeric or numeric characters, this allows for any grouping of letters or numbers that could be “turned on” or “linked” to a Web page (URL). From consumer products to license plates to posters, anything can be a direct link to a web page (URL). or custom PaperClick Codes™ for print on any surface
So imagine essentially scanning a product in a retail store and comparing prices online, on your cell phone or PDA. A very interesting idea… But I wonder how store owns would feel about it. Maybe you can get a bargain out if it 
But I believe Amazon filed a patent on barcode price comparison back in September 2005, found some information at this blog post.
Anyways, the Shelron Group stock (SHRN.OB) went up a couple pennies so I sold some shares.
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I can’t remember the specifics of it, but if you do a little searching I’m sure you can dig it up pretty easily… a while back there was some big hoopla over this sorta thing, being able to do comparison shopping using barcodes/upcs and isbns (specifically the latter I believe) using a wireless device while out at a real store. It got to the point where people figured out how to hack these freebie little scanner things and use them to scan in a barcode and do instant shopping comparisons. There was a big todo about it at the time, somebody was not at all pleased.
As far as the functionality goes, this was a big thing on the wishlist for the DVD Profiler Community… being able to key in upcs from their cell phones to check against their own personal collection database (since it’s tough to remember certain things when you’re actually out at the store sometimes). The ability to scan/key in these things had been functional in this software and other dvd collection software which made it extremely easy to enter your dvds into your collection database. I don’t know if they ever implemented the mobile features however.
Either way, this type of functionality would be helpful with any consumer shopping to check not only on prices but to double check on your own online inventory/shopping lists to make sure you’re getting the right thing or to just plain remind you what else you need to get when you forget the list, hehe.
As far as patents for X Marks the Technology names for mobile barcode scanners and such I don’t think we’re going to see too many patent suits until the market gets truly ugly since everyone tries to patent everything these days and unless it’s revolutionary technology it’s not really worth going to court over common sense uses or after-the-fact patenting.
Ja
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