Camera Phones Read Hidden Messages in Print 126
pikine writes "As reported by BBC News, Fujitsu has developed a technology that encodes 12-bytes of information in a printed picture by skewing yellow hue, which is difficult to discern by human eye but fairly easy for camera phones to decode using software written in Java." The first target uses are promotional contests and competitions, not entirely unlike those game pieces that need to be viewed through a colored filter.
Re:Scary Tech (Score:5, Informative)
done for you or me. It was done quietly for law enforcement [freedom-to-tinker.com] to be able
to *find* the owner of any printed document.
The enormity of that type of underhanded removal of privacy is
just gobsmacking. And most vendors quietly went along with it.
This technology will no doubt be used in a similar vein - any
picture uploaded onto the internet can be traced back to *you*.
Freedom takes another blow [la-articles.org.uk].
Re:Anyone remember Digital Convergence? (Score:3, Informative)
further development of an existing technology (Score:5, Informative)
You often see this barcode on advertisements next to the url - you can scan the barcode and save typing in the url. I've done it several times - even my non-techy wife uses the feature.
This new announcement seems like a way that you can embed the information without having to have an obvious barcode spoiling the picture - but you will still need some tag to let you know that there was something there worth scanning.
Why not Semacode? (Score:3, Informative)
Semacodes can store a lot more information and can be scalled to include more or less. They are FEC'ed and are quite relisiant to damage.
http://www.semacode.com/ [semacode.com]
You don't even need to use the offical Semacode decoder, there are Free projects around.
Simon
They put a CueCat in my phone! (Score:5, Informative)
Fortunately it was a commercial failure - as the "free" devices cost a huge amount of cash. I'm sure this will fare better, of course, because it utilizes customers existing equipment. But who knows what wonderful websites it'll forward you too, hmm?
Re:further development of an existing technology (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code [wikipedia.org]
The idea is that you print them on business cards, and people can scan your name and phone number into their phone quickly. Kind of useful in Japan where you end up with piles of business cards quite quickly.
Re:A very amateurish method. (Score:3, Informative)
You've basically reinvented Gray Component Replacement [wikipedia.org] (GCR) and Under Color Removal [wikipedia.org] (UCR), and they have nothing to do with hiding information. Replacing colors on the press in what is a theoretically neutral way is already done for many reasons.
You're also depending on a perfect press, which doesn't exist (there are no bits or pixels on paper) -- you can't really swap ink mixtures in and out transparently. There is always a bit of difference due solely to the density of ink, humidity, paper, etc, so there are aesthetic reasons for replacing inks on the press in one way or the other.
99% of the full-color printers on Earth are set up for 4 colors -- Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. The Yellow plate is the one we're least visually sensitive to, which is why they're using it to put information on. Your desktop printer is 4-color, not RGB (although it does all the processing in RGB). Adding extra plates or colors to printers is a hugely expensive and complicated undertaking, nobody is going to do it just to add something that isn't even visible.
Re:Low-end vs. high-end phones (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Scary Tech (Score:2, Informative)