ITEE Innovation Expo 2008 : Project Details

Real-Time Mobile Phone Bar Code Reader

As mobile technology becomes increasingly essential in daily life, the value and effectiveness of the Java 2 Mobile Edition platform is demonstrated further. Capable of supporting a host of utilities and games, J2ME brings portable devices to life. Equally as essential, barcodes play a fundamental role in consumer products. They are common in both retailers and warehouses to uniquely identify a given type of product.

This thesis project aspired to utilize both technologies by developing an application with widespread relevance, a Mobile Phone Barcode Reader. The application allows users to read barcodes using their mobile phone’s camera peripheral. It is built on the Java CLDC and MIDP configurations and profiles, which allows portability across almost all Java enabled mobile phones.

In order to demonstrate the relevance of this application, it has been aptly named Shop@Home and designed in the context of home shopping. Users are able to scan the barcode of any given product, and then either download additional information about the product from a database, or place an order for more of the product. Shop@Home could easily be adapted for a variety of other uses, such as viewing competitor pricing for a product. Alternatively, this application could be deployed for use in warehouses, to enter or view product information.

Currently, the Shop@Home application only supports the single dimension EAN13 barcode standard.