Oh! Gizmo

By Mac Harris

The newly formed phone division of PC-hardware giant Asus is turning geek-heads with its new J105 phone, available now only in Taiwan. What sets this strikingly bland looking clamshell apart from the herd is basically some clever imaging software and a (very Asian) marketing campaign. The phone’?s 2 megapixel camera can recognize and interpret QR Codes [the modern day barcodes of the East.] that people wear; reporting back stats and personal information about that person.

These codes are omnipresent in many Asian cities and can be printed onto anything from stickers to, as seen in the press photo, temporary? tattoos. The premise is quite simple. You see someone interesting on your daily bullet train commute to SuperGlobalElectronics Concern, snap a picture of their barcode, and receive stats and information about that person immediately on your phone.

While QR Code reading phones are nothing new in countries like Japan and Taiwan for shopping and product identification, this is the first use I’?ve seen of the technology in the social networking realm. That’?s what Asus is betting on in its marketing campaign for the phone. This is just the beginning folks, expect other technologies in the future to notify us if a friend of a friend of a friend (think Myspace/Friendster) walks past us while in line at the Grocery.

Story VIA Akihabara News

On a lighter note, presenting the delicious, data-filled QR Code cake