Food data. That’s what ShopWell has and is willing to share it. The best thing it is intended to be customizable – the stuff you want out of food is probably different than I want. New users to their website are treated to just a few steps to get started. Users select things they want more »

Fandango was one of the first companies to take movie ticket purchasing online. But now that the rest of the world has caught up with them, Fandango needed to take another step to get ahead of the game. So they came out with mobile tickets. Mobile phones have now become computers in their own right. more »

Even little suburban towns cannot escape the march of technology as this past weekend saw the introduction of Scan It: a self scan/self check system of getting your groceries. High tech groceries? Yes, and the benefits are for both store and for us shoppers.

Hello Moto?

In their free time, when not designing $2000 cell phones, the team at Motorola is coming up with handheld scanners, like the one imaged above. Upon checking in at the scanner kiosk/recharging station, a simple scan of my store loyalty card releases a scanner to shoppers. The scanners feature a barcode scanner and a color screen complete with sounds. . . .

Have you heard of Tikitag? I first saw it at ShowStoppers in NYC and it officially launched on the 1st of October. No, it has nothing to do with tikis.

It’s a RFID system. You get RFID stickers, you put them on stuff, and then you place the tag near or on a reader connected to your computer. Your computer will do some pre-programmed action like open a website, play music or whatever.

It’s almost a good idea. The problem is they are marketing it directly to consumers. They want you to tag a picture, send the picture to your grandma and then your grandma will swipe the picture to the reader and the computer will open a Flickr slideshow or something else.

Will this thing succeed? Keep reading.

It’s been discussed many times before, but how would you like it if your cell phone could read barcodes? You don’t really need to answer as GS1 is pushing to have it done already. GS1 has standardized the standard barcode, and wants to standardize the 2D dot matrix barcode, and soon possibly the Quick Response (QR) code. The company believes that consumers should be able to “scan” these barcodes for a variety of uses.

Possibly the most important use of the barcode “scanning” would be what GS1 calls “extended packaging.” For this, when you scan a barcode with your phone, you receive more information about the item on your phone. This information can be allergens, instructions or any other information that might not fit on the packaging. This seems pretty simple until you think that with this companies could possibly cut down on packaging, saving money and resources in the process. Thinking further than grocery items, perhaps movies or video games could have less packaging, with most of the information that would be on the back of the case instead sent to your phone through the barcode. That would be a long way off, but it could be possible.

What else does GS1 have cooking for barcodes? Read on to find out