Semacode tagging

This page is part of a project in development.

As hypertext has been supplanted by hypermedia to link the world wide web togther, the idea of an internet of things is gathering momentum. How can real objects be linked to the electronic world?

This diagram illustrates how the concept currently works. A tag is placed on a real object, which when read by special software installed on a wireless mobile device, displays an internet page. Semapedia provides a model by which objects can be linked to the relevant Wikipedia article.

There's no reason why the concept can't be hijacked by students for all sorts of interesting projects. For example, students can take part in location-based conversations about a an object like a building, a natural feature or an art piece. By tagging the object, people with a smart phone can instantly find out information, or take part in a conversation whilst at the location itself. I'm using this idea for a school based art project over the next few weeks.

The are a variety of tagging systems. Radio tags broadcast a signal can be read at short range by an appropriate device. SMS tags are essentially codes on markers that return a message once a text call is made using the code. Yellow Arrow uses this model.
There are several formats for graphical tags which are essentially barcodes. The codes can be printed on anything, and easily read by a camera phone. Semacode is one example. The graphic below is a two-dimensional barcode for the URL of this page, that can be read by a phone with a semacode reader.


http://www.juicygeography.co.uk/semacode.htm

To produce a semacode tag for any URL of your choice, simply click click to open semacode application in new window. Because this is a Java applet, it's not possible to print the graphic directly from the web page, so take a screen shot of the active window (Alt and Print Screen in Windows XP) and then crop the barcode. You might want to paste it into some form of template that lets users know what to do. This can all be done very easily in Word, here is the template I'm using. Simply change the graphic for one of your choosing. Once printed, the tag can be laminated for durability and then placed on any desired object.

In order to read the tag, download the reader. A smart phone is required.
There are three easy steps:
• Check if your mobile phone is supported
• Point your mobile phone browser to: http://semapedia.org/reader
• Follow the on-screen instructions for "Over The Air" installation. This should not take longer than 1 minute.