Microsoft has created a new kind of custom tags. So far we had QR Code and Datamatrix Code. The new system from Microsoft is called Microsoft Tag and main difference is that it does not use square pixels, but triangle shapes and colors to store data.
As we can see in the below picture, it represents 1 byte in less area than the current custom tags. That’s because the triangles are half the size of the previous squares, and it uses 4 colours insted of black and white.
Microsoft is not the only one researching into QR codes. Movistar recently created the system Bidi, and also Orange its system Flashcode. Both introduce these encoding systems to provide services like buying spectacles tickets, share website links, download multimedia content, so to sum up, it provides automatic access to services and contents.
And what about the “future”???
Will this technology become a social reality? Will it give us some useful functionality? IT CAN!!! In Japan this technology is used everywhere, like on posters and billboards, providing anyone with a cell phone immediate access to information on consumer prize campaigns, addresses or maps for retail outlets. In the below TV ad, NTT DoCoMo explains to viewers how QR codes work, to make their use familiar.
In Barcelona the company Daem Interactive uses this tech in its solution Skuair (supports Symbian S60 3th generation). This solution could be use, for instance, in a supermarket to select the products you want to buy, send the list to the supermarket server/device, pay and wait for your products to be packed.
Software
We have talked about custom tags technology, let’s talk now about ohw to use it. This tech becomes useful if we can work with it everywhere, what means that has to be accesible from our mobile devices. This is real, nowadays we can have it in our mobile phones. There are several mobile applications for this purpose, and they consist on taking a picture to the custom tag (QR Code, Datamatrix, and others) and then the app will decode the picture into the info that was encoded, like an URL, a mobile command…
For instance you can download the application for Bidis os Flashcodes from Movistar and Orange sites. Also Microsoft has developed a mobile application for mobile devices to work with Microsoft Tag. The name of the application is the same as the custom tag, and it is available on Windows Mobile, iPhone, BlackBerry, Symbian S60 and mobile phones with Java. You can download it from this website.
Try this code on your Phone 
Via iPhone Buzz | Microsoft
