New Bar Codes Can Talk With Your Cellphone

From New York Times 04/01/2007
By LOUISE STORY

It sounds like something straight out of a futuristic film: House hunters, driving past a for-sale sign, stop and point their cellphone at the sign. With a click, their cellphone screen displays the asking price, the number of bedrooms and baths and lots of other details about the house.

The ability of cellphones to read bar codes is still rudimentary in the United States, but here is a basic demonstration.

Media experts say that cellphones, the Swiss Army knives of technology, are quickly heading in this direction. New technology, already in use in parts of Asia but still in development in the United States, allows the phones to connect everyday objects with the Internet.