Amazon Japan Offers Barcode Purchases via Camera Phone

Zode writes "Jesse James Garrett reports that Amazon Mobile Japan customers can purchase a item with their camera phones. "Snap a photo of a product bar code using your cell phone, and Amazon Japan will give you a price check," according to Garrett, relaying from this article in Ketai Watch (Wireless Watch). Here's the English translation from Babelfish."

Available in America...

...in 6 years. That's how these things tend to go.

also 4th post.

Re:Available in America...

Actually your post was the 10907649th post. Sorry, I'm afraid you were slow.

Re:Available in America...

You have WAY too much time on your hands.

Purchase from ADs ?

It looks as though the shopping is done from bar codes on Real-ads :)

Bar codes are kinda hard to get right on a mobile phone camera (but I think high end only).

This is the beginning of a new cross-shopping trend. Enter a shop, look for a product , enter in amazon , measure urgency vs economy , pick it up or order :)

I already saw a company in India offer an IR universal remote control for their phones (Nokia 3220 IIRC) . Was a trial version for 15 days after which it asks whether you want to buy the app. You pay for it through your mobile too and the bill comes down to you as part of your monthly phone bill.

M-commerce , eh ?

Indian patents ...

> does patent law work the same way in India as it does in the US

Introduction, Preliminary, Inventions not Patentable [patentoffice.nic.in] clearly mentions something about e-Patents .. so that post can be easily forgotten .

Computer Programs
1. Computer program is not patentable invention as computer program is
a set of instructions for controlling a sequence of operations of a dataprocessing
system. It closely resembles a mathematical method .It
may be expressed in various forms eg. A series of verbal statements, a
flow chart, an algorithm, or other coded form and may be presented in
a format suitable for direct entry into a particular computer, or may
require transcription into a different format (or computer “language”). It
may merely be written on paper or recorded on some machine-
readable medium such as magnetic tape or disc or optically scanned
record, or it may be permanently recorded in a control store forming
part of a computer. Thus it is evident that a program may be presented
in terms of either software or firmware.

India does offer Process Patents but explicitly prevents patenting naturally occurring substances or extracts there of. However you are free to patent your form of culturing or producing an anti-biotic or vaccine. Patent infringement can be enforced in India as is with any other country in the world. Interestingly , Prior art of Foreign origin are valid in India - unlike the USPTO [piercelaw.edu] .

Get an OSS Loving [ciol.com], Nuke Missile Desgning [presidentofindia.nic.in] President for your country too :)

Re:Purchase from ADs ?

must be really behind with phones

Absolutely. The North American market is very different. Competing technologies (CDMA, TDMA, GSM, iDEN) mean there is less choice in terms of handsets, plus they're locked for the most part to the carrier that sells them. Costs are often more than landlines. You pay to make AND receive calls. Coverage can be spotty due to geographic extent. Analog coverage is still a factor. Lots of different things.

Eric

Re:Purchase from ADs ?

Forgot to mention: Steve Punter's Southern Ontario Cell Phone Page [arcx.com] is a great resource for information on the North American cellphone market from the consumer viewpoint. (Well, it's really about the Canadian market, but the same technologies are used in the US.) He has a good explanation of the various technologies [arcx.com] available in the North American market, and links to all the carriers in Canada. I find the coverage maps (like this one [arcx.com] for my area) pretty useful.

At least the BlackBerry [blackberry.com] is designed and built here, so we're not totally behind!

Eric
Basic info about BlackBerry development [ericgiguere.com]

Here's a wacky idea:

you could put the price on the bar code tag instead, thereby saving your customers time and energy.

They won't even need a cell phone. Imagine that!

Not a wacky idea. A stupid idea.

First, one of the benefits of bar codes is that you don't have to put individual price tags on items anymore.

Second, if you had to pay someone to manage all of those price tags, you'd have to raise your prices thereby making amazon an even more attractive alternative and losing even more business in the proces.

Third, did you even think about what you were suggesting before you did it?

LK

Far Out indeed

That's amazingly far out. It sounds like something from a scifi movie... but it could turn out to be useful. I doubt my camera phone can take such clear pictures (hey, I have trouble recognizing myself) but all things are possible in Japan. Just out of curiosity (the Babelfish article did NOT make sense) would this mean that while buying something at a shop, you would realize it's cheaper on Amazon? I don't know, taking into account shipping and the 1-2 days wait for products, I would just buy it at the store while it was right in front of me.

Male information

"In addition, such as CD sales ranking of search keyword ranking and American Amazon the male also information is published."

Why is Amazon publishing my male information?

QR codes. Is there anything they can't do?

The main problem I've seen with QR codes is that they are printed too small and can't be scanned with cellphone cameras. Other than that, they are great for business cards when combined with WAP. You can print up your WAP-enabled code and zap your contact data directly into someone's cellphone.

What about the bookstores?

How long until bookstores forbid the use of camera phones? I think many bookstore owners would be less than pleased if people only entered their store to be able to buy books from some other place.

Re:What about the bookstores?

Prices on books in Japan are pretty much fixed. The price including or excluding tax (which is a standard 5% across the country) are printed on the book by the publisher. I guess there are discounters, but Amazon doesn't seem to be one of them. All prices there seem to be standard, or maybe 5% or so off.

Japan does other weird things like splitting books into two halves. I'm not sure what purpose this serves, since usually they're sold together. I guess you could maybe buy the first half and then decide if you want to buy and read the second half or not. Maybe it's easier to hold one small book at a time rather than one large book.

My kanji and vocabulary are so weak that all I can read are manga for kids. Even then, I need a dictionary, and I'm probably picking up all kinds of weird childish or goofy expressions.

OT: Re:What about the bookstores?

Yeah, they split them because Japanese books are historically a smaller form factor than Western ones. Lord of the Rings, for example, is sold as an 11 book box set. Smaller books fit in handbags better, and given than nearly everyone in Tokyo has a painfully long commute, making books small enough to hold in one hand while standing is a good idea. I used to reverse commute from my place in central Tokyo out to the National Cancer Center East, about 2 hours in all, and standing most of the way. Little books would have been nice.

Re:What about the bookstores?

I live in Japan.

They didn't ban the phones, but came up with a uniquely Japanese compromise.

They got together with the phone maker association and got them to agree that when phones take a picture, they *must* (all phones do it now BTW) make LOUD camera clicking sounds, or play LOUD music that you can hear across the store...

This way the store keeper can hear the sound, come and throw you out...

Re:What about the bookstores?

I'm not sure, but I had the distinct impression that the loud noise was not to tip off shoppers, but to tip off ladies that you might be using your camera phone to take rude pictures of. (In the locker room, or up some poor girls skirt)

All we need now..

is standard barcodes and we could do price comparisons in the same way that shazam [shazam.com] tags recorded music.

Imagine sending a picture of a barcode to ebay to see if there's an auction for that item running.

This was bound to happen

Well, this seems like a neat system, however, I hardly ever use Amazon as a price referance, I tend to look at ebay when I buy things. If it's retail, then it's retail. It's the aftermarket price that I worry about... Unless www.pricewatch.com can come up with a system like this, that woud be snazzy

Great for Froogle, Pricewatch + feature request

Great that this idea is being implemented.I have thought of fiddling with the Dutch equivalent of Pricewatch and Froogle on my Treo 600 in a store to see for instance what a certain keyboard would cost elsewhere. In the end I ended up with searching online first for what I wanted and just recording the prices on a paper list. (envelope scraps are just so passe)

I would like to add a feature request. Could they hook it up to the review sections as well, so that it becomes possible not only to see how much it costs elsewhere, but also if people like it at all. Even nicer would be if it could turn into some augmented shopping list, complete with tips like If you buy this, you will need that etc.

Re:Yah shops are going to love that

Your argument is correct for the most part. I'm willing to bet some are going to hate it. However a smart salesperson can also use it to his/her advantage. Point the buyer at the fact that the price difference is not large, that their are benefits in buying in a shop, because of service and then use a recommendation for an extra as a way to sell an item on top of the deal. If there is a steep price difference then try to give the buyer a package deal with a discount, which still leaves the seller with a nice margin.

Research in the Netherlands has shown most Dutch people search online for product information, but buy offline if the price difference is not too high, or they want instant gratification etc etc.

Does anyone else already do this?

More than once in Borders I've found a computer book for £30-40 that I will check with Amazon before buying in-store. Sometimes it's cheaper, sometimes I want the book now. As someone else said I expect Borders' friendly no-hassles attitude to change the moment they spot someone typing an ISBN into their phone (or snapping a barcode).

Bezos on TechTV

I saw Jeff Bezos on TechTV about a year ago and he talked about this technology as being a precursor to complete optical product recognition.

Essentially, he explained, you could take a picture of anything from the cover of a book to an action figure, mountain bike, sandbox, stereo reciever, sweatshirt or snow mobile and recieve price comparison from Amazons network of retail sites and "shops."

I remember it distinctly because it was the first time i actually felt that a camera on a cell phone wasn't the most idiotic idea I've ever heard.

This was, of course, BEFORE I discovered that women stick their camera-phones down their pants and take pictures, and ACTUALLY POST THEM ON THE INTERNET!

Hmm.. I wonder if Amazon.nl would give you a price comparison of THAT... hmmm... ...not that I would use such a service, even if it existed... ...but if you happen to, you know, come across one.. maybe.. let me know?

Finally a translation that's readable

Except for the odd mistake the translation is very readable... Time for the "loosely translated from japanese"... cliche to die [planettribes.com]

I don't know how the situation is in Japan...

... but in my county you have to pay money to send photos from a cell phone to someone. So instead of spending my money on products I'm asked to spend my money on getting the price for the products? That looks quite strange to me. :-)

Big player

I knew the system allready but now amazon is joining this program it could just make a big flight.

I don't kow however if this would work anywhere outside of Japan. The cultural aspects of payments out there are quit different from those in the western world.

Babelfish

I ran the babelfish translation through a markov generator and was not surprised when the output made more sense than the babelfish translation. Here:

The Amazon Japan ...
did the portable edition of online book store "Amazon.co.jp" service
is started from 2001, but ...
was done attendant upon the efficiency improvement multi-functionality
of carrying. Were added in personal computer edition became purchase
possible. In addition, such as CD sales ranking of search keyword
ranking and American Amazon the male also information is published.
Also navigation and search function of the portable telephone and
can scan the bar-code of the commodity, also the service which with
the same sight the purchase possible commodity it can order directly.
At the same company, when the commodity which order and the friend
of the consumable have likes, when liking to know whether what kind
of related commodity sells in other things, with you say that utilization
when you said is supposed. EZweb, border phone live! Edition, while
looking at the trend of i mode edition, have assumed that it keeps
examining. On the 22nd concert was held inside capital. As for jasper
of Representative President same company,
"those where the commodity is discovered in Amazon with scan search,
become very simple", that appealing the easiness of the same service.
Concerning ... doing
portable edition "with respect to the strategy, as the importance
you consider also Mobile", that it does, "function of personal computer
edition even with Mobile steadily probably becomes possible. On the
one hand, keeps constructing also just Mobile feature ", that you
talked the future enthusiasm. As for access to of portable edition
Amazon.co.jp, if with the same

Keitai doesn't mean wireless

It means mobile and is used as a slang (or rather abbrevation) for mobile phone (which is keitai-denwa). So keitai watch is a news site about phones, not wireless stuff in general.

It's BTW pronounced ke-tai.

possibilities

So camera phones can be used as barcode scanners, eh? I wonder how long until we see this in a wider usage. I mean, why buy an expensive laser reader when any cheap camera will do?

I would personally like to see the ability to scan a barcode and see results on your phone for what the product is going for on different online retailers (think froogle).

Also, does anyone remember those scannerz games where you would go around scanning barcodes to create monsters to fight with? That would make a killer cell phone game!

Nice idea

This is the first time that I actually see a sane reason to have a camera in a mobile phone. They're too crappy for taking real pictures, they increase the weight of the phone by 25%, more and more places are banning cam-phones... But at least now you can use them to buy stuff at Amazon. ;-)

I wonder if they patented this...

Readable translation

I said 'readable', I didn't say 'good'... I'm at work. Anyway:

Amazon japan have updated the mobile phone version of the amazon.co.jp shopping site, which they run. The menu and search screens have been completely redone, and for iMode, there's a service starting whereby you can scan a barcode using your phone and look up or buy an item.

The amazon.co.jp online store mobile verison was opened in 2001 but has been remade in the light of the improved power and functionality of mobile phones. The 'home & kitchen' and 'toy & hobby' stores, included in the PC version of the site, are now in the mobile version, and products not in the PC version's 'marketplace' can be bought too. Recommendations appear too, in the form of search keyword rankings and the CD sales rankings from the US version.

The navigation and search functionality of the menu screens has been enhanced too. In each store, bargain corner products, 'campaign' (ie sales promotion) information, and discounted 'red' prices are visible -- as well as product images. In product search, detailed search features are available depending on the type of product, and a search can be done from any screen.

As a new experiment, the iMode-oriented 'Amazon Scan Search' service has been begun. With this, you download a free specialized application, and using the camera in your mobile you can scan the barcodes on items. After scanning, a request is sent to the mobile version of amazon.co.jp, and if the item is one that can be obtained at that site, you can order it. The same company also suggests you use the feature when ordering consumables, or when you want an item like one that your freind has, or when you want to see what related products are for sale. The 'Vodaphone Live!' version of EZWeb is also considering the iMode trend.

A product launch was held on the 22nd. Amazon's representative director, Jasper Chan, emphasized the convenience of the new service, saying 'With Scan Search, discovering Amazon products has become unbelievably easy!' Concerning the remake of the mobile version of the site, he said 'We see mobiles as strategically vital' and describing the enthusiasm with which the matter will be taken forward, he said 'Whatever functionality is available to the PC version will, more and more, be in the mobile version as well. On the other hand, we will also be building functionality specially to suit mobiles'.

The amazon.co.jp mobile version is accessed via iMode from 'Shopping Ticket', via EZWeb from 'Shopping'/'Books/CDs/DVDs', and via Vodaphone Live! from 'Shopping/Ticket'/'Books/CDs/DVDs/Games'.

I wonder

Ok, I snap a product in the shop, but can I shove it into my pocket right then? What reason the guards have not to detent me? How does the physical stuff move? If I snap something in my home (and by some strange coincidence post the picture to processing number) would they still bill me?

Mac people using this already...

The good folks at Delicious Monster [delicious-monster.com] have the Delicious Library [arstechnica.com] where you can use your iSight or other camera to scan your DVD library barcodes for ease of use. Quite pornographic.

Barcode recognition have been used awhile in Japan

Especially for making links on flyers easy to follow with your i-mode or ez-web (two largest mobile online services in Japan) enabled phone.

You just smack a barcode on the bottom of your ad-flyer (for the latest PS2-game, or whatever) and have people shooting them with their phone-camera and instantly get redirected to the product homepage. Kinda neat and really handy as entering URLs on a phone is a real pain in the ass.

These barcodes also confirm to some sort of standard (dunno the name), so it's easy for whoever to print out their own barcodes recognizable by the phones.

changing barcodes

seems to me stores would use proprietary barcodes so that they arent always undercut by amazon or other sites.

id cringe seeing everyone double check prices, and use my retail (overhead) store as a browsing station.

isbn

or how about you just sms the isbn number printed below the hard-to-scan ( no dammit that's not the book I want ) and obtain the same thing????

overkill

you can

1. snaping the UPC using a camera phone then send the photo using whole bunch of bandwidth over to amazon and then have a OCR-like software to read it,

or

2. punch in the 10 digit UPC then press Send?

RFID Around the corner

I'm not sure this will catch on or that I'd want it to with RFID right around the corner. How long before RFID replaces every barcode on everything? Can't be much more than 5 years. This is a very cool thing though, especially the idea of being able to look up reviews for an item you're looking at in store.

If anyone was wondering...

This is the company that has been developing this: Neomedia [paperclick.com]

What you don't know

It is against the law in Japan to sell books at under list price so this gimmick is not really going to work for books.

For other things to laws are different so DVDs, games, eletronics and other things Amazon sells this might be useful.

Big deal

Combine this perl with the browser of your choice and you have the same thing.

$!/usr/bin/perl
my $searchURL = "http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=%1";
my $browser = "kfmclient openURL";

open( F, "lynx -source 'http://www.upcdatabase.com/item.pl?upc=6595565859 21'|");
while()
{
if(/Description.+<td>([^<]*)<\/td>/ ) {
$searchURL =~ s/%1/$1;
system("$browser \"$searchURL\"");
}
}
close(F);

Now all you need is a program to turn a UPC picture into a bar code (can probably find one already) and you're off to the races

It's not an entirely new concept

a couple of companies already do similar things with SMS (and have done so for years). For example [qed-uk.com]in the UK theres an online retailer that sells electrical goods online. If you're out shopping and see something, you can SMS them the model number and they'll send you back their price.
I've only ever bought one thing from them, but it's just nice to use it to reassure yourself you're not being completely ripped off buying soemthing on the High Street.
Amazon's barcode reading functionality is very nifty I'm sure, but surely it'd be cheaper, faster, more discrete and less error-prone, just to type in the Book title or ISBN.

Google SMS allows this as well

The Google SMS search allows you to enter a barcode and get a price check (presumably from Froogle). You can use the ISBN (price 043935806X) or the barcode (price 018208252145). Not as cool as using a camera phone for a scanner, but it will work.

any cool stuff we have that Japan doesn't?

Ahh, more cool stuff from Japan that we don't get. Is there any cool stuff we get here in North America that Japan doesn't have?

and how is this different from cue cat?

Anyone thought about the privacy issues? This will just fill the vast amazon market research demographic databases at an ever higher rate. Sometimes Amazon.com scares me as it is.

Not to mention this probably will facilitate undercutting local retailers. This kind of sucks in some ways, because there are many products that are sold with an "educated salesperson" service attached. Such as running shoes, stereo equipment, etc. So the person taps the expert's knowledge and then surreptiously scans the barcode to see if they can save $5.00. They do this after they try on the shoes or clothes, listen to the speakers, etc.

Disclaimer: I've been that educated salesperson for several years of my life.

My open source bar code recognition

Here's a demo of my UPC code recognition software for nokia series 60 phones: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/barcr-reader/ba rcr-alpha2-bin.zip?download Right now it just displays the code on the screen. If you want to toy with the source, get a CVS checkout. You need a macro lens on any current cell phone to focus on such close objects, or you need really big barcodes.

My open source barcode recognition code

I should take this opportunity to point out I've been working on an OSS project to accomplish part of what this is. Here's a demo of my UPC code recognition software for nokia series 60 phones:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/barcr-reader/ba rcr-alpha2-bin.zip?download [sourceforge.net]

Right now it just displays the code on the screen. If you want to toy with the source, get a CVS checkout.

You need a macro lens on any current cell phone to focus on such close objects, or you need really

Re:QueCat

CueCat was entirely different.

They were trying to do target advertising where you could scan a paper catalog and they would take you to a propreitery website with the information.

This meant that you had to do it from home, and you knew _their_ prices for the catalogs.

(they also had something where you could connect to the TV, if am not mistaken)

Either way, their model failed because they were giving away a piece of hardware away for free.

Re:QueCat

My bad - I guess both do give _their_ prices, however Amazon does not have anything much to do except the service itself.

And CueCat had some privacy issues, which I forgot to mention - they had issues with losing information etc (they had furtive customer tracking) etc.

Hopefully, Amazon isn't stupid enough to do something like this :-)

Re:QueCat

I'd like that, too! And with bar codes on invoices and stuff Internet-bank users like myself wouldn't have to manually punch the account numbers, names, KID-numbers and such if both the phone and the PC has BlueTooth. Which they do. :-)

Re:Soooo......

but it's now wireless - that's progress