Printable Semacodes for Wikipedia

By Robert • November 24, 2006

QR Code for Pier 39 Semapedia.org allows creation of printable semacode tags to Wikipedia pages. Semacode is a software company based in Ontario, Canada. It is also this company’s trade name for a machine-readable visual tag which encode internet Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). Semacode camera phones have built-in readers and web browsers.

The example shown here is the semacode tag for the Pier 39 (San Francisco) page at Wikipedia. A visitor to Pier 39 could photograph the tag (presumably placed on an information kiosk) using a semacode enabled camera phone, then be automatically taken to the Wiki Pier 39 page to retrieve information. The semacode could conceivably be placed in guidebooks, newspapers, and even on T-shirts.

There are a number of competing 2-dimensional camera phone barcode standards on the market today (see previous post). Semacodes look remarkably similar to QR Codes. However, semacodes are based upon Datamatrix Code which is distinct from QR Code. It is clear that in a few years a standard will emerge that will be built-into camera phones worldwide.

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