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Posts Tagged ‘bar codes’

A new algorithm can scan zebra photos like they were bar codes, helping researchers track individual animals more easily.

“StripeSpotter,” designed at the University of Illinois-Chicago and Princeton University, will help researchers build biometric databases based on field photographs. The programmers are building a zebra-print database for Plains and Grevys zebras in Kenya.

StripeSpotter users would only need a digital camera and a laptop capable of running the simple program. Take a picture of a zebra, and the StripeCode algorithm extracts certain image features, using a dynamic programming algorithm to compare them and search for a match. This way, ecologists can determine whether an animal has been observed before, and then take field notes, GPS coordinates and other information. If there is no match, the assumption is that the zebra has never been spotted before.

It could also be used for other striped animals like tigers and giraffes, the researchers say.

The system is described in a paper to be presented this month at the International Conference on Multimedia Retrieval.

[MSNBC]

The bar code tags do not remain in the fully grown organism

That is precisely what researchers at the Autonomous University of Barcelona have done, reports New Scientist. Using cells from mouse embryos and eggs, the scientists developed a procedure that involves inserting microscopic silicon bar codes into a gap between the cell membrane and an outer membrane called the zona pellucida.

The next step is to try the technique on human embryos and eggs. That will happen soon; the Government of Catalonia health department has already approved the method for use on genetic material provided by Spanish fertility clinics.

The technique could help fertility doctors avoid mix-ups during in-vitro fertilization – such as a 2002 case in which a white couple gave birth to black twins.

Mara Hvistendahl is writing Unnatural Selection, a book on reproductive technology, sex selection, and gender imbalance.

As Technology Review reports, divers can use symbols on tablet computers to control underwater 'bots. The system could enable enhanced diver/robot collaboration.

Despite their importance for aquaculture, surveillance and oil-spill cleanup, it's still difficult to remotely control robots underwater, especially when they are not tethered to a mother ship. Radio waves are too easily distorted, sonar requires too much power, and aquatic particles interfere with light waves. One new system would give robots transmission capabilities, allowing them to relay information and work in swarms.

The waterproof tablets may be the solution. They can display two-dimensional bar codes, or tags, that are already in use for smart phone applications. The tag at left is showing 10 bits.

Flashing the tags at a free-swimming AQUA robot's underwater camera allows for fast, robust communication. It's better than other untethered communication platforms like sonar, Tech Review reports.

The tags correspond to a command stored in the robot's memory. When the bot is tethered, it can react to the tags instantly and transmit video back to the tablet. When it's untethered, it can respond to a tag command, perform its task and report back to the diver.

To date, the system has been tested in the open ocean and in swimming pools. Possible future uses include studying shipwrecks or even military applications, Tech Review says.

[Technology Review]

Following the release of Apple’s iOS4 iPhone update yesterday, and in anticipation of the upcoming iPhone 4 launch on Thursday, Microsoft released an updated version of its Bing iPhone app this morning that introduces two new features: Social networking integration, and a feature it’s calling Visual Scanning, which lets you search bar codes and media cover art with your camera.

The app can now connect to your Twitter and Facebook accounts to let you view updates from your friends. Microsoft takes that integration a step further by allowing you to search your friends’ social updates, as well. And, of course, you can now share items directly to Twitter and Facebook from within the app.

The Visual Scanning feature is basically Microsoft’s spin on Google’s Goggles visual search, which is currently only available on Google Android devices. The feature is fairly straightforward: After choosing the “Camera” option on the main screen of the app, you can either perform a search on any bar code, or search on the cover of any book, CD, DVD, or video game. The bar code search worked fine for me, but the cover art search was a bit more finicky. It would recognize covers of obscure books, but had trouble with the cover of Microsoft’s own Halo 3 Xbox 360 game.

In typical Microsoft fashion, the company didn’t see fit to include support for its own 2D bar code technology, Tag. To read those bar codes, you need to download the separate Microsoft Tag Reader app. I’m not entirely certain how difficult it would have been to include Tag support in the Bing app, but it’s something Microsoft should consider. It could easily boost the amount of iPhone users running the Bing app by killing off the Tag Reader app altogether.

The app also includes improvements to its Movies section with the addition of more trailers and videos, as well a new Shopping section to let you find products easily.

Tags: bar codes, Bing, Tag, Visual Scanning

Companies: microsoft

The product would also be the first to use printed nanotube transistors

A version of the RFID tags slated to hit the market later this year would be the first product to use printed transistors based on carbon nanotubes. Printing means the application of different layers of antenna coils, nanotube inks, and capacitors and diodes.

The researchers at Sunchon National University in South Korea successfully printed out the plastic RFID tags using common industrial methods such as roll-to-roll printing, ink-jet printing, and silicone rubber-stamping.

These processes churn out tags for just three cents per piece, but the group ultimately hopes to pass the one-cent milestone by figuring out how to lay down all the nanotube ink layers in one go during the roll-to-roll printing. Many RFID tags today cost anywhere from 7 cents to 15 cents, if not more.

But some hurdles remain before you'll see these newer tags at checkout lines. The current prototypes are three times the size of a typical barcode, and can only store one bit of information -- just enough to either give a yes or no response to an RFID reader. Such tags also only work with readers up to 10 centimeters away, because of their weak power signals.

That should change with the 64-bit tag set to come out next year, and then ultimately a 96-bit tag, a real barcode-killer.

Even the pricier RFID tags today have already found use in EZPass highway tolls and as anti-counterfeiting devices.

[via Technology Review]