The pattern on a building in Tokyo is filled with information that can be read by a properly programmed cellphone with a camera. The technology can also be used for many other things, like buying airline tickets.

A Futuristic Cellphone To Navigate the World

陳宜君譯

聽來像未來主義電影情節：想找房子的人開車經過吉屋出售看板，停下來，拿手機指向看板。按一下，手機螢幕就顯示房屋價格、臥房和浴室數目，以及這棟房屋的其他許多細節。

It sounds like something out of a futuristic film: House hunters, driving past a for-sale sign, stop and point their cellphone at the sign. With a click, their cellphone screen displays the asking price, the number of bedrooms and baths and lots of other details about the house.

媒體專家表示，手機正迅速朝此方向發展。亞洲部分地區已經使用這種可透過手機讓日常事物與網際網路連結的新科技，但美國仍在研發中。

Media experts say that cellphones are quickly heading in this direction. New technology, already in use in parts of Asia but still in development in the United States, allows the phones to connect everyday objects with the Internet.

誠如哥倫比亞廣播公司一位高層主管所形容，新一代手機已化身為數位遙控器，可在螢幕上閱讀日常物品的編碼資訊，轉為影片、圖像或文字檔案。

In their new incarnation, cellphones become a sort of digital remote control, as one CBS executive put it. The phone can read encoded information on everyday objects and translate that into videos, pictures or text files on its screen.  

這位主管—哥倫比亞廣播公司行動通訊應用部門主任塞里亞克．羅伊丁日前表示：「手機是結合實體世界與數位世界的自然工具。」

“The cellphone is the natural tool to combine the physical world with the digital world,” that executive, Cyriac Roeding, the head of mobile-phone applications for CBS, said the other day. In Japan, McDonald’s customers can already point their cellphones at the wrapping on their hamburgers and get nutrition information on their screens.

在日本，麥當勞速食店的顧客已能用手機指著漢堡的包裝，在螢幕上閱讀營養成分資訊。手機用戶也能以手機指向雜誌廣告，獲知保險報價；或是憑手機搭機，而非飛機票。電影宣傳人員可用廣告看板傳送預告片。

Users there can also point their phones at magazine ads to receive insurance quotes, and board airplanes using their phones rather than paper tickets. And film promoters can send their movie trailers from billboards. 

惠普科技和廣告業財團陽獅集團等大型廣告和科技業者正推動這項科技在美國普及化。

Big advertising and technology companies like Hewlett-Packard and the Publicis Groupe, an advertising conglomerate, are pushing to popularize the technology in America. 

惠普英格蘭布里斯托實驗室資深研究員提姆．金柏格說：「你用這個產品，就不會想回頭用個人電腦。或者你在這棟大樓外面，想獲得更多資訊。我們把這稱為『實物超連結』。」

“You’ve picked up this product, and you don’t want to go back to your PC,” said Tim Kindberg, a senior research at the Bristol, England, lab of Hewlett-Packard. “Or you’re outside this building, and you want more information. We call it the ‘physical hyperlink.’” 

手機科技將物品與網路連結，可顯示雜貨店貨架或書報攤上實體物品的數位編碼標示。

Cellphone technologies linking objects with the Web would reveal the digitally   encoded attributes of tangible things on grocery shelves or newsstands.

連結手機和實體物品的方法，最有前途的是新一代條碼：黑白方塊構成的正方形馬賽克圖形，可攜帶比傳統條碼更多的資訊。手機上的相機掃描條碼後，轉譯為影片、音樂或文字，顯示在手機螢幕上。

The most promising way to link cellphones with physical objects is a new   generation of bar codes: square-shaped mosaics of black and white boxes that can hold much more information than traditional bar codes. The cameras on cellphones scan the codes, and then the codes are translated into videos, music or text on the phone screens.

這項科技在日本有一種相當受歡迎的應用方式，就是無紙化機票。全日空國內線航班乘客，現在約有10%以手機顯示的條碼取代印刷版機票。

A popular use of the technology in Japan has been paperless airline tickets. About 10 percent of the people who take domestic flights of All Nippon Airways now use the codes on their cellphones instead of printed tickets.

雜誌發行人協會會長妮娜．林克表示，條碼是「印刷的自然延伸」，「你曾有多少次這樣的經驗：在雜誌中看到某樣東西，你會說：『老天，真希望自己會記得打聽相關資訊。』你得記得把網址抄下來。」

The codes are “a natural extension of print,” said Nina Link, the president of the Magazine Publishers Association. “How many times have you engaged with a magazine and you’ve seen something and you’ve said, ‘Boy, I’d really like to remember to get that information.’ And you have to remember to write down the U R L.”

這項科技讓廣告主能夠透過測量條碼點擊頻率的方式，監測廣告出現在雜誌、戶外看板等傳統媒體上效果。

The technology would also allow advertisers to monitor the impact of their ads in old media like magazines and billboards by measuring how often their codes are clicked.

在菲律賓，菲律賓日報在廣告上同時刊登條碼。在英國，擁有太陽報等報紙的新聞集團旗下「新聞集團報紙」公司正在測試配合體育新聞一起刊登的條碼。讀者可掃描報上的條碼，然後觀賞和報導相關的影片。同樣的，法國雜誌「經濟之晨」也正在測試這類條碼。

In the Philippines, the Daily Philippines newspaper has run ads with the codes. In Britain, News Group Newspapers, the division of the News Corporation that includes newspapers like The Sun, is testing the codes along with its sports articles. Readers can scan the code in the newspaper and then see videos relating to the article. Similarly, Economic Matin, a magazine in France, is testing the codes. 

威瑞森無線通訊公司內容播送業務副總監大衛．歐柏霍澤爾表示，要讓消費者使用類似前述條碼的科技，媒體需要採取許多行銷手法。

Getting consumers to use technologies like these codes takes a lot of marketing by the carriers, said David Oberholzer, associate director of content programming at Verizon Wireless.  

條碼服務業者「下一代條碼公司」執行長吉姆．雷文吉說：「消費者需要動手做的理由。他們不會一起床就說：『嗨，咱們來掃描條碼吧。』」

“The consumer needs a reason to do it,” said Jim Levinger, chief executive of Nextcode, a bar code company. “They don’t just wake up and say, ‘Hey, let’s go scan some bar codes.’”

By LOUISE STORY

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【2007-05-05/聯合報/C4版/教育】