Microsoft's New High Capacity Color Barcode

This new barcode presented by Microsoft and International Standard Audiovisual Number International Agency breaks out of the traditional black and white barcode mold and utilizes full color. It can contain large volumes of information without being a radio frequency type code. It is intended for media related products such as motion pictures, video games, broadcasts and digital video recordings.

According to the Microsoft press release dated April 16, 2007, the barcode is intended to satisfy both publishers and consumers. For publishers the “identification and tracking technologies will provide detailed data that can aid in royalty payments, anti-counterfeiting efforts, market analysis and a host of other business functions.” DatatraceDNA is expected to add nano-particles into the code as an anti-counterfeiting measure. And for consumers, “the new bar codes can be combined with Web services to offer enhanced information such as product versioning, ratings identification, parental control, product availability, special releases, contests, pricing and promotions.” It is expected that as cell phone camera quality increases consumers can use their cell phones to capture and interpret barcode images, which is becoming popular in Japan where consumers can capture barcodes with their cellphones to buy products and more.

The barcode consists of four to eight hues of colored triangles with as many as 3,500 alphabetical characters of data per square inch. They are reported to be able to include as much as two pages of data. Since this HCCB barcode required high quality color printers, it is not expected to replace traditional black and white barcodes used in shipping or other high volume uses. This barcode is expected to show up on XBOX 360 discs and DVDs before the end of the year.