BAR CODING SUPPLEMENT

Rapid developments in mobile phone bar code integration will evolve into more extensive bar code use in other industries, especially in areas where there is not another extensive infrastructure already in place.

Bar code–reading mobile phones are now offered as an integral feature on some phones or as an add-on device for PDAs. In our March 2001 article in PMP News “Raising the Bar” (visit www.devicelink.com /pmpn/archive/01/03/004.html), we discussed bar codes being used directly by consumers for transactions in the near future. That future is now!

Specifically, we cited CueCat as an example, which was highlighted as one of the “Most Memorable Tech Flops” in the January 2008 issue of PC Magazine. CueCat was a very limited free scanner for fixed-position computers that didn’t catch on. It most likely failed because the difficult-to-use search-engine technology and the difficulty of hardware integration made CueCat’s limited functionality impractical for most users.

However, today this concept has been integrated into mobile phones and can be made almost hassle free for business users as well as consumers. (Note: This is an underlying technology that makes Ireland’s Haemophilia program possible.)

Middleware that reads bar codes for camera phones has been developed by several companies that will turn a standard camera phone into a portable bar code scanner. The software resides on the mobile phone system or in another scheme on the phone itself. The software can analyze the picture to interpret the bar code and feed the appropriate information downstream to logistics systems and back to the phone itself.

One such example is Lavasphere from Gavitec AG - mobile digit, which won the enterprise category of the Ericsson Mobile Application Awards in 2004. The Lavasphere system allows camera phones to read traditional one-dimensional bar codes, Data Matrix, and other two-dimensional printed codes.

A new phone bar code standard has been adopted by the IATA that will allow bar codes displayed on mobile phones to be used for airline check-in. (Visit www.wirelessweek.com/IATA-Mobile-Barcode-Standard.aspx for details.) Passengers will be able to have the appropriate boarding card bar code sent to their mobile phones when they book a ticket and then use that bar code as a boarding pass at the airport.  The process eliminates paper from the check-in process. “Passengers want the convenience of self-service options in a paperless environment,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s director general and CEO,  in a statement. “This standard is an important step in getting rid of paper that bogs down processes and drives up costs.” IATA has a 2010 deadline for implementation of 100% bar coded boarding passes. The association estimates that full implementation and widespread use by passengers will save more than $500 million annually.

Mobile phones will soon be used as credit transaction devices and could be the equivalent of an ID transaction code in and of themselves. Currently, initial pilot studies and some limited commercial usage are under way. (Visit www.wirelessweek.com/mobile-phones-as-credit-cards.aspx for details.)

Positional phone tracking has been used by law enforcement to find persons of interest for some time. Furthermore, in 2001, a study was done to track Heparin API from a U.S. plant to a European plant by the Pharmacia BioPharma QA group. Since there was no infrastructure for RFID tracking nor “between-terminal transaction tracking” with freight handlers, a test was done with a live cell phone within the shipment. The idea was that if the shipment was lost, mobile phone companies already have an existing infrastructure to locate the product. The result of this test showed that a cell phone under certain conditions could be used to locate product. Since that time, much has been done in standardizing the mobile phone infrastructure and cross-mobile-company integration, and now phones can be tracked online relatively simply. (As an example of sorts, see www.sat-gps-locate.com/english/index.html.) Sophisticated sites provide on-line map software, phone system triangulation, and GSM positioning to find misplaced cell phones or a mobile phone–marked package.

Although RFID was proclaimed the panacea for product tracking, as mobile phone technology prices continue to drop, they will increasingly supplement or replace RFID. Mobile phone technology simply has the advantage of a well-developed existing infrastructure. In fact, with the appropriate scheme to use otherwise unutilized mobile spectra, cell phone–enabled identification could explode in the technology market similar to the Internet explosion in the 1990s on the back of the then-existing voice phone systems.

Mobile phones on a chip are even possible. In 2003, Intel unveiled a cell phone built on a single chip. (See http://pcworld.about.com/news/Feb132003id109258.htm.) Electronics’ promise of plummeting prices applies to cell phones just as it does to RFID transponders. The once-impossible idea of affordable on-product RFID could move to an idea of a form of on-product mobile phones. Amazingly, the right phone on a chip could be designed to use the unutilized gaps in spectrum, the same way the Internet was able to use the unutilized spectrum of landline telephone systems. This can mean mobile identification with untethered location verification systems accessible by mobile readers. Economics will determine whether these mobile phone devices will be deployed for shipments only as reusable refurbishable devices like today’s disposable cameras or whether they will be permanent product fixtures. Regardless, management of these mobile phones will be facilitated with a permanent bar code that readable even after the battery is dead.

World mobile phone R&D expenditures are in the $$ billions, with Qualcom alone spending over $450 million in 2007. (See www.electronics.ca/reports/wireless_technology/qualcomm.html.) Consequently, the race for the next “killer” applications in mobile phones most certainly will include expansion of bar code–related functionality. Increased mobile-phone-and-bar-code functionality offers healthcare value with an emerging path for providers and patients.