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[weaksauce]

Whats this i hear of a bar code scanner? does it come out of the lens ? I have no idea what it is. I'm coming from an Lg Dare so can someone help this smartphone NOOB. thanx

 

[varaonaid]

I'd love to hear this too. I've always assumed it had something to do with the camera but would love a brief explanation/tutorial of what to expect on that. Sounds like it's used on the Android platform a lot.

 

[malice]

I know with touch pro there was an app you could use with camera. So basically you could take a pic of the barcode and it would somehow do whatever it did. Looked cheezy, and the implementation for? You won't have database support for any retail applications, so whats the use?

 

[mistamista2000]

There are several different programs that do this. I used one when I had the Motorola Droid. It worked really well for me. Here's a video of one explaining how it works...

Android Scan: pricing and metadata for anything with a barcode

 

[lgldrgdlr]

go to the market, search for "barcode scanner", download, run app, point at barcode and let focus, listen to it beep and be wowed (at first). then it comes in handy while shopping at a store that will price match. I saved almost $20 on a hd at best buy because wal-mart showed it was that much less

 

[jikhead]

There is a real world application for this. Anyone who works with labeling can utilize it for testing. To give you an example, part of my job is designing labels for our customers. (We develop software for the food industry). Customers require different types of barcodes based on their needs and also by their customers needs. There is also an international organization called GS1 that sets up global standards to use for the industries. Anyway, most of our customers produce cases that use the UCC/EAN 128 barcode type that provides traceability for recall purposes. So in case of bad product or what not, we can trace that case all the way back to WHO produced it, WHAT plant, its PRODUCT CODE, the PRODUCTION DATE it was made, etc. We also usually print a TYPE 39 barcode on the label for inventory tracking.

So lets say I don't have one of our Pocket PC's, Symbol, or Palm devices handy (which also has a barcode scanner and our handheld device applications) and I need to do some testing on the barcode...I could use the Incredible to scan the barcode with the camera. The app on the phone will then tell me what barcode type it is, and tell me what data it decoded in the barcode. By using this, I can ensure that my barcode data was outputted correctly or not. I can keep going, but this should give you a simple basis for the barcode scanner on the phone.