Android @ NYC MobileCamp 2
Probably the most anticipated presentation at MobileCamp 2 was on Google’s Android‘s barcode reader, named ZXing (short for Zebra Crossing). Despite the presentation , there wasn’t much to show since Android’s SDK was under wraps until the following Monday. The presentation was pretty much a call to open-source developers to help with Google’s barcode reader.
Google’s decision to use the open-source Webkit was clearly a smart move. It’s already used by Nokia’s S60 and Apple’s iPhone. I am keeping my fingers crossed that:
- Google and supporting carriers will be smart enough to include ZXing in factory installs. There’s no way that technology will pick up on this side of the Atlantic unless the learning curve/pain of software installation is removed for the basic user.
- That the continued use of Webkit by phone software developers will eventually phase out WAP sites, mobile CSS, and that .mobi domain.
Based on video of Android, it looks more user-friendly than Symbian OS, but lacks the integration of hardware to software celebrated on the iPhone (so far). Will it revolutionize the smart phone industry since developers can openly develop for the OS? Possibly, however, this is something that’s been offered on Symbian for years, so it’s not really anything new.
An attendee at barcamp also posed a good question–how will one upgrade versions of Android? Apple does have a tightly-integrated and easy-to-approach process through iTunes (albeit locked down to developers). Perhaps Google should next consider creating a desktop application that syncs and manages cell phone content with the desktop.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Have you noticed how google android looks like iPhone operational system?
Compare the functions shown in the videos below:
weshow.com/us/p/23362/google_android_demo
weshow.com/us/p/18795/iphone_home_made_review
What do you think? Will google bring iPhone power to everyone who can’t afford apple products? That would be great
November 16th, 2007 at 3:33 am
I actually think their doc looks similar to the Mac OS X doc… Google CEO Dr. Eric Schmidt is on Apple’s board of directors, so I doubt that everything is a coincidence
November 19th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
As a follow-up, the project is now open and ready to go: http://code.google.com/p/zxing/
I can only speculate about who includes what software and where, but I think this is a cool, useful technology that people will want. I hope this project helps catalyze development of more, better readers, whether related to this code or not.
November 19th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Sean,
Nice presentation and Q & A.
Off-beat question for you: I’ve noticed that some more tech-oriented people I know have been printing their Web addresses as semacodes on their business cards (Personally, I think this is over-complicating the message). Instead, I thought it’d be cool to use a semacode to link to a vcf format business card. Unfortunately, when I tried doing this my phone couldn’t recognize the v-card and therefore wasn’t able to add it to my address book.
Granted, not everyone has a phone that supports vcf, but I think there’s alot of potential for this particular use. Is this a issue that the software/reader developers or the cell phone manufacturers need to tackle? Has Google considered this at all with Android?
November 19th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Great question, since I think this is a nice use of barcodes. DoCoMo has a “MECARD” mini-format for this kind of info. This is already implemented in the “core-ext” module of zxing, but is not hooked into the Java ME reader. It does work in Android, and that code will be coming out soon.
So, that is one promising format that is already out there and supported by a lot of Japanese phones. I can imagine support VCF too; it’s a bit more verbose though and that’s an issue.
Separately, I know the guys at the Mobile Codes Consortium have been thinking about attempting to gather interested parties and standardize things like this. I think that’s a good idea.