BarcodeScanning
Latest
StripeSpotter turns wild zebras into trackable barcodes
We've heard plenty of stories over the past few years about tagging animals with RFID chips, but we've never been particularly keen on the idea. Well, now a team of researchers has come up with a much less invasive way of tracking individual animals -- specifically zebras -- by essentially using their stripes as barcodes. StripeSpotter, as it's known, takes an isolated portion of a photograph of a zebra and slices it into a series of horizontal bands. Each pixel in the selection is then fully converted into black or white, and the bands are in turn encoded into StripeStrings, which eventually make up a StripeCode that resembles a barcode. All this information is stored in a database that allows researchers to directly identify particular animals without ever having to get too close. StripeCode may be a zebra-centric application for now, but its developers see it making a mark across the food chain with the inclusion of other distinctly patterned beasts, like tigers and giraffes. Animal tracking hobbyists can get their own free copy of the application by clicking on the source link below.
Rugged xTablet T8600 tablet PC handles barcode, magnetic stripe reading
Joining the curious workhorse UMPC / tablet PC arena is the xTablet T8600, which boasts about its ruggedness, barcode scanning, and magnetic stripe reading abilities that it handles when not checking your email and making dinner reservations on the go. Furthermore, the unique design allows for a backlit numeric keypad and directional arrows to be installed beside the 8.4-inch SVGA display, and internally, you'll find a 1.1GHz Intel Centrino processor, up to 1.28GB of DDR2 RAM, a "dual digitizer / touchscreen standard," integrated 802.11a/b/g, shock-mounted 40GB hard drive, optional EV-DO / EDGE / GPRS / GSM, Bluetooth, a nine-pin serial port, and a Li-ion battery that can reportedly keep things running for "up to seven hours." To account for all the beatings it'll presumably endure, it sports military-grade water-, dust-, and shock-proof characteristics, and can also operate at extreme temperatures. Hope you aren't too excited, though, as there's no word just yet regarding pricing or future availability.[Via PCLaunches]
