I just talked with Olivier Attia, the CEO of Scanbuy. This company makes software that lets camerphones read barcodes. So if you're in a store and want more information about a product you're looking at (for example, say you'd like to know what it would cost to buy the item online instead), you can just zap the barcode and pull up the info on your phone's browser. (Minus the barcode function, CNET just launched this utility for technology products: Point your cellphone's browser to m.cnet.com.)
Apparently reading barcodes with a camera (as opposed to a laser scanner) is harder than it sounds, so the company's technology is a defensible barrier to entry. However, Scanbuy is not the first company to do this: NTT DoCoMo already offers a similar service in Japan, and there are other competitors here in the US.
The concept of using a portable connected device to easily read the "tags" on physical items is very interesting. I'm going to explore it in an upcoming Rafe's Radar column.
