Imagine what you could do if we had establish standards on certain products regarding barcodes. Mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous, and they are not just phones any more, they have computing capabilities and internet connection. This opens a plethora of opportunities to make our lives easier.

Case 1: What if product barcodes were easily recognizable by our phones, then when we’re in a store, we would just scan the barcode, and our phone would search within 5 miles of distance using location based services and find us stores that offer the same product for a cheaper price.

Case 2: You buy a microwave product, you scan the barcode to the microwave, it sets-up the temperature and cooking time automatically.

Case 3: You scan your receipt at a restaurant, your phone recognizes the price you have to pay, and calculates the tip for you, or even makes an online transaction over the internet.

You can easily come up with more interesting cases, there are endless opportunities. The question is, why is it not the case when we have all the technology we need?