Dynamic barcodes for a better ubiquitous understanding

Abstract

Barcodes have survived the shift from paper to screen. Printed boarding passes and paper advertisements are substituted by mobile applications and digital billboards where barcodes remain key to exchange small amounts of information in a quick, uncomplicated way. The move to digital media opens up new opportunities for dynamic usage scenarios involving barcodes. In this paper, we explore how 2D barcodes can increase the awareness of machines in an analog world where information is primarily visualized for humans. Moreover, we exploit displays and cameras as virtual networks to transfer data using 2D barcode slideshows. Hence we address two problems conventional barcodes cope with: a constrained data capacity and a lack of semantics in the data it contains.