Umbrella Public Relations Stunt Achieves World Record Claim

Umbrella display: Located within the volcanic region of exotic Hainan Island, Mission Hills Resort Hainan marks a magnificent addition to Hainan's tropical island paradise. Boasting an exceptional variety of world-class lifestyle, recreation and wellness facilities, the Resort is poised to be one of China's most sought-after leisure destinations. Caption and Image Credit: Mission Hills Resort Hainan

Umbrella Public Relations Stunt Achieves World Record Claim

Yesterday, at what has been billed as the world’s largest golf facility, Mission Hills Shenzhen, China, people holding umbrellas on the fairway of a picturesque golf link, claimed a world record by creating a “human” displayed QR Code.

Close-up detail. Image Credit: Mission Hills Resort Hainan

The QR Code was formed by nearly 2,000 staff carrying umbrellas and an aerial photograph was taken from a height of 270 feet so that the code could be used in Press Releases.

The purpose of this PR effort is designed to promote sustainable eco-tourism ... and in celebration of Mission Hills' 20th anniversary, the Group is giving away twenty 3 day / 2 night Romantic Premier Spa Suite Getaway packages at Mission Hills Haikou Resort on the tropical island of Hainan.

When users scan the QR Code, they will be directed to a campaign website to answer three simple questions related to sustainable eco-tourism. Those who complete the questions with the correct answers will be entered into the draw for a chance to win one of the Mission Hills Micro Holiday packages valued at US$2,600.
(ht: PR Newswire)

Say Hi to the world, 1,369 people love Taiwan, the arrangement of the world's largest human OR Code, hands in the air to empty footage Say Hi to let the world see Taiwan, to show the enthusiasm of the people of Taiwan. Caption and Image Credit: Wen Shiren Cultural Foundation and the Taiwan Foundation (taiwansayhi.com)

QR display detail - Wen i Taiwan ‧ wonderful movie tidbits Say Hi to the world activities Video posted January 16, 2013. Image Credit: Wen Shiren Cultural Foundation and the Taiwan Foundation (taiwansayhi.com)

This is not the first time people holding umbrellas stand in a predetermined pattern in order to form a QR Code upon which folks with camera/QR enabled smart phones could scan the code created and be directed to a website to qualify or buy something of value or interest. At the beginning of December last year, 1369 people raised black, white and blue umbrellas to form a QR Code directing people to a website that promotes Taiwan culture and tourism - http://www.taiwansayhi.com.
(ht: 2d)

... Symblogogy


** Article first published as Umbrella Public Relations Stunt Achieves World Record Claim on Technorati **

SEARS, ScanBuy 2D Codes, And The Web 2.0

Web 2.0 application where the cellphone handset with a camera becomes an automated information retrieval device that delivers the the web displayed into ones hand. Image Credit: ScanBuy

SEARS, ScanBuy 2D Codes, And The Web 2.0

Last week, at the NRF 97th Annual Convention & EXPO 2008 held at the Jacob Javits Center in New York, Sears discussed its efforts to launch an in-store test solution for providing customers access to information on products they were interested in purchasing. This test represents the first major retailer combined with selected product manufacturers in the United States to investigate the Physical World Hyperlink functionality of symbology and the cellphone handset.

In this test, that began its roll-out last month in a store located in Georgia, Sears was interested in testing ways on how to automate providing product information without having to place price checker/information kiosk systems in the aisles. The idea is to provide information through leveraging a tool the customer may already be carrying in their hand … the camera cellphone.

Sears has placed a special use two-dimensional symbology (read digitally on an X-Y axis) developed by ScanBuy on advertising displays located strategically next to participating manufacturers goods throughout the retail floor.

The cameraphone as a scannerphone using ScanBuy symbology. Video Credit: Face2099

Sears has its concerns with this specific application on a couple of levels in that not all phones have cameras, or if they have the camera – the phone does not have the software needed to have the phone decode the image captured and bring the information to the phone’s display.

Other technologies considered for this application include NFC or near field communications that would be triggered through cellphones that are equipped with an RFID chip. Normally this chip is used as the “wallet” in a PoS cashpoint application when the phone is used as a credit card for identification purposes, but can be adapted to trigger a Web 2.0 response when the customer is looking for additional information on products offered on the Sears sales floor.

At Symblogogy, we ask this technology question to Sears:

For the application of replacing the functionality of having to place price checker/information kiosk systems in the aisles and leveraging the cellphone as an information display tool, why not test Bluetooth broadcasting to the cellphone display (commonly referred to as Bluejacking)?

A high number of handsets already are equipped with Bluetooth capability and the technology is easy to implement in that no additional action is required from the customer except to opt-in by turning on the Bluetooth function while roaming the asiles in the store.

The cameraphone as a scannerphone. The camera picks up the ScanBuy symbology image, decodes it, then has the phone launch a webpage associated with the decoded information contained in the ScanBuy code. Image Credit: Face2099

This article excerpted from eWEEK -

Sears First Out Of Gates with 2-D Bar Codes
By Evan Schuman - 2008-01-18

Sears First Out Of Gates with 2-D Bar Codes

Sears is the first major U.S. retailer to start a public trial of 2-D barcode technology.

Efforts to implement retail 2-D bar codes are accelerating, with Sears becoming the first U.S. retailer to begin a public trial that started in mid-December at a store in Marietta, Georgia.
----
There are multiple vendors pushing the technology in the United States; Best Buy and Target are working with a company called StoreXperience, while Sears and others are talking with an outfit called ScanBuy.
----
The technique involves having a cell phone's digital camera "look" at a small 2-D bar code on an advertisement, which launches an applet. A server interprets the bar code and the phone then launches a Web browser and deep-links to a page on that site, typically the Web site of the advertiser.

Currently, the biggest concern, which is also likely to be the most short-lived, is that the service is available on a relatively few phones in the United States. The concern about a shortage of supported phones was mentioned by a Sears manager involved in the trial.

ScanBuy, for example, has worked out deals with only Sprint and Alltel, according to ScanBuy CEO Jonathan Bulkeley. Such negotiations are complex because it requires deals and programming for multiple browsers, carriers, hardware manufacturers, operating systems and camera manufacturers. A code or management change from any one of those players can make the whole package unravel.

At the Sears trial, several hundred product advertisements in the store have the code, Bulkeley said. To simplify matters, Sears is initially having store associates use the phone and then show the results to customers, as opposed to letting consumers do their own scanning. This sidesteps some of the hurdles, such as guaranteeing that the phones used are fully compatible with the demo and that the cameras are aimed properly. On some phones, if the bar code is not directly in the center of the screen, the application won't work.

Another concern is that consumers must download the application. The applications tend to be small—both the apps for StoreXperience and ScanBuy start at about 200K, depending on the browser and the required OS needed—and can be installed in less than a minute.
----
The Sears trial is slated to end this June.

One IT manager with a Fortune 50 consumer goods manufacturer said that his firm is in talks with ScanBuy and that they were introduced to the firm by Verizon. That manager said he is impressed with the technology and is discussing it internally, but he believes that 2-D bar code will be pushed aside by NFC (near-field communications) devices, which are still a few years away. He sees 2-D as a short-term placeholder until NFC is real.

"Personally, I think that touchless NFC approaches will likely be more successful. No need to aim your camera. But Scanbuy's approaches are worth following," he said.
----
That manager's thoughts about NFC were similar to others. But news this week—courtesy of a new NFC market share report this week from ABI Research—suggested that NFC is farther away than initially thought, giving 2-D more maneuvering room.

The new ABI numbers for NFC shipments dropped the 2007 estimate to 650,000 from a predicted 1.1 million and also reduced the projections for this year to 6.52 million, from a predicted 9.81 million.

Even so, Bulkeley predicts NFC and 2-D bar code co-existence based on pure economics. The nature of NFC will lend itself better for payment and POS interface but it's not practical to create one for every print ad in stores, streets and in publications. But 2-D bar codes, he argued, can be mass-produced for very little money.

"NFC will be for a payment mechanism but I'm not so sure it will be an information access mechanism," Bulkeley said. "Car and Driver (magazine) isn't going to print 400 near field codes."

Like all trials, it's not clear whether any will lead to actual deployments. And like all negotiations, it's not clear how many of the retailers who have expressed an interest will end up agreeing to a trial. A Nordstrom's manager, for example, said Thursday that the chain has decided to not pursue the discussed 2-D trial. One reason mentioned was that it was seen as placing too much of a burden on the consumer.
Reference Here>>

Mobility Device Gives Palm OS A New, Robust Life

Banner Ad photo from Janam Technologies website. Image Credit: Janam Technologies LLC

Mobility Device Gives Palm OS A New, Robust Life

Last week, on the floor of the National Retail Federation's "Big Show 2007", a company was displaying a new mobility data collection device designed to bring the next version of the Palm OS operating system into the retail marketplace in an upgraded, more robust way.

What makes this noteworthy is that there have been a few changes in the data collection market niche and these changes had put the Palm OS operating system in jeopardy of being orphaned or even left behind. The original company that had developed the Palm Pilot and Palm operating system software was sold to another company in Japan and one of the largest manufacturers of data collectors, Symbol Technologies, did not have its licensing agreement to use the Palm OS software extended or renewed. To complicate matters, Symbol Technologies was also purchased by one of the largest manufacturers of communications equipment and phones in the world, Motorola.

Symbol Technologies was having to walk away from a market that they had established through first placing pedestrian PDA technology in data collection environments, then making the PDA with its Palm OS more robust and capable to handle a greater number of tasks. A massive number of these devices were placed in the field without a plan to continue to improve or integrate technologies as they became available.

A couple of former Symbol employees recognized that this niche, the Palm OS PDA-based data collector niche, might end up on the side of the road with a bunch of satisfied customers not having a place to go to find a current "next version". Enter Janam Technologies LLC - a new start-up company that announces "Migration is now as easy as it was meant to be".

Close-up of XP30 Series QVGA Color screen. Image Credit: Janam Technologies LLC

Excerpts from a news item found at PDAsNEWS -

Janam Technologies and PalmSource Announce Five-Year Agreement
By Dimitris S. - Published on 11/9/2006

Janam Technologies LLC, a provider of rugged mobile computers that scan barcodes, and ACCESS Systems Americas, Inc., a member of the ACCESS CO., LTD., group of companies, today announced a licensing agreement that enables Janam to develop and sell application-specific mobile computers based on the latest version of ACCESS' Palm OS Garnet until 2011. In addition, Janam today announced its rugged, barcode-scanning, PDA-format mobile computers that will offer all the winning features of Palm OS Garnet, while still supporting barcode-scanning applications written for earlier versions of Palm OS. More than 40 million Palm Powered mobile phones, handhelds, and other mobile devices have been sold worldwide. With over 29,000 Palm OS application software titles available today, the Palm OS platform offers one of the largest third-party software catalogs to enable users to customize their Palm Powered smart mobile devices to fit particular needs.

"This is a story of investment protection," said Harry B. Lerner, Co-CEO of Janam. "Value-added resellers and their customers who have invested millions of dollars over the last 10 years in barcode-scanning applications for the durable Palm OS platform will now have cutting-edge hardware to which they can migrate their existing applications effortlessly, while adding newer functionality that further extends their solutions."
----
Janam’s XP Series rugged mobile computers combine the benefits of the Palm OS® Garnet™, including long battery life, a simple development environment and overall system stability, with the advanced technical features found in typical industrial mobile computers that run on alternative operating systems, in a much smaller and lighter package - all for up to half the list price.

XP20 Series features a Monotone screen, 266MHz CPU, PDA and Numeric keyboards, Batch or WLAN, 1D symbology scanner only. Image Credit: Janam Technologies LLC

The XP20 Series features a custom, "bright white", 160 x 160, monochrome display that was developed to provide continuity with today’s Palm OS® industrial mobile computers.

XP30 Series features a QVGA Color screen, 266MHz CPU, PDA and Numeric keyboards, Batch or WLAN, choice of 1D scanner or 2D imager scanner. Image Credit: Janam Technologies LLC

The XP30 Series adds a color, quarter-VGA display and Bluetooth as standard.

Hand Held Products' tiny 5000 series image engine is a revolutionary combination of a digital camera, illumination optics, and aiming optics. Devices powered by Adaptus Imaging allow you to capture signatures, take photos, read virtually all bar codes - even damaged codes - and so much more. Best of all, it allows you to tackle emerging applications with confidence - protecting your investment well into the future. Image Credit: Hand Held Products

All XP Series products offer a 2D barcode scanning option [not supported by distributor documentation - All XP20 Series products are offered with 1D scanner only / All XP30 Series products are offered with a choice of 1D or 2D scan engines], meet IP54 sealing requirements, withstand drops to concrete from 4'/1.2m and weigh less than 10 ounces. The XP Series will be the world's first, rugged, mobile computer that combines Palm OS Garnet (version 5.4), numeric keypad option, user-accessible memory, NAND flash memory backup, USB connectivity, double capacity battery option and, in WLAN versions, WiFi Protected Access (WPA) wireless security.

With easy management of accessories in mind, Janam will also offer a single-slot charging/synching cradle, four-slot charging/synching cradle, USB synching/charging cable and attachable magnetic stripe reader (MSR) that works with all XP Series mobile computers.

Read All>>

Also, these excerpts and reflections from VARBusiness -

Symbol Bids Adieu To Palm, Start-up Seeks To Fill Void
By Shelley Solheim, VARBusiness - From the November 27, 2006 VARBusiness

Partners who have tested out the new devices say they think the products will fill a market need.

"The Palm OS base is shrinking, but there definitely remains strong demand from customers who need an aggressive barcode scanner with a simple application at a low price point -- something that Palm OS excels at," says Brad Horn, Portable Technology Solutions, a provider of mobile barcode enabled data collection solutions. "These customers cannot afford and do not need the higher end features bundled in with the Windows Mobile and CE.Net Terminals. The Janam terminal is a great fit for these price sensitive customers."

"There is still a Palm market out there. We found some customers were pretty upset with the end-of-life with Symbol's program," says Tom Moxley, president of Next Level Solutions, in Scottsdale, Ariz. "This will give the Palm user a good window to convert so he can do it on his timetable not with his back to the wall."

There is another small provider of rugged Palm-based devices based out of New Zealand, called Aceeca, although its devices are based on an older version of the Palm OS.
Read All>>

At the time of this post, the first production units are expected to ship out in the first half of Q1. List pricing of the XP Series devices is expected to range from $995.00 to $1,545.00 depending on how the XP Series device is configured.

The renewed focus, improvements, and upgrades of this OS developmental effort may translate into greater functionality of the PALM OS in general.