Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Phones with eyes (19 Mar 2005) Phones with OCR software face the problem, however, that text is meant to be read by humans, not machines. But the opposite is true of bar-codes. The Japanese arm of Amazon, an online retailer, offers a service that allows subscribers to carry out a cheeky price check while browsing a bookstore. Snap a picture of the bar-code on a book or CD, and a quick over-the-air look-up will tell you if Amazon's price is lower. Japanese consumers can even use the technology to find out how fresh their fish is. Scan the bar-code on its packaging, and a text message arrives in seconds detailing when it was caught, on which boat, and even the name of the fisherman who reeled it in. Article URL: http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3714023 Read 66 more articles from Economist sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: The device that ate everything?     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy