Indeed this is an interesting development, but it started already with TCP/IP and HTML IMHO. That’s why Larry Lessig insists on the code;)

As for Microformats – do you know the Microformat Operator for Firefox?

***

And QR Code Readers on mobile phones are not only popular in Japan by the way. Taiwan, Hong Kong and now China also use them more and more.

And Kaywa also started in Europe with QR Codes and Nokia’s N93 also came out with a preinstalled QR Code Reader.

You can for example easily create a mobile version of your blog and a QR Code by going to Feed2Mobile .
And the “machine”, the Kaywa Reader reads it then.

I am picturing a near future where people make money designing effective machine-ready items – followed shortly by one filled with ones that take over sites, modify information, make false attributions, phish … we really are going to have to crack some of our security, integrity and privacy problems in the very near future, I think.

Hi Roger, just QR coded the wikinomics blog. Now we just need more of these bar-code readers here in Canada! Bruce, you raise an interesting question, how long before people start painting over QR codes in real world “phishing” schemes to send them to the wrong websites. Sigh.

Dear Bruce,
Japan has QR Codes everywhere and I didn’t hear any story of QR Code hacking or phishing etc. And if you want it be secure… well japanese passports use QR Codes:)

Why? It’s simple. The camera phone only decodes the code and only then you do something with the result which you see beforehand.
Text, SMS, Phone and URL’s are displayed before you do activate them.

So it’s comparable to typing an URL in that way. You also have to know beforehand if you trust the source.

Alain,
What are the most common phones in Canada?
Best
Roger

Check out a code that was designed just for the optics of mobile phone cameras (not infrared readers like QR): http://theponderingprimate.blogspot.com/2007/01/smart-communications-licenses.html

Roger, I’m interested in finding a Canadian phone capable of reading QR codes. A handful of newer smart phones can be made to do it I think. But this doesn’t tend to get advertised since QR codes aren’t yet a feature Canadians are looking for. Any suggestions? Three Canadian providers have lists of their phones at:

Bell:
http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpWls_Landing.page

Telus:
http://store.telusmobility.com/on/digital_pcs.htm

Rogers:
http://www.shoprogers.com/store/wireless/products/phones/overview.asp?shopperID=12345&features=2&area=1

Way cool, Alan. Nice to see you are as ahead of the curve as always!

ciao
ian.

This reminded me of a post I wrote a little while ago on Marketing to (and with) algorithms. The issues of marketing to algorithms, like other forms of “talking to machines” has got to be on everyone’s mind as everything from search agents to QR Codes proliferate.
JT

Opps – one of my links got dropped – http://www.edmblog.com/weblog/2006/12/marketing_to_an.html

[...] imagine doing this via a mobile phone too (either through cameraphone image, QR code (discussed here and here), IVR, OCR, or even a “sound” produced by the website that you could hold your [...]