I don't think this is too far fetched, given that Dubai is sending barcodes to mobile phones to use as entry visas.
The idea is really simple: take the bar code that's on the back of your library card, scan it in, load it onto your mobile phone, and then when it comes time to check out a book have the scanner scan from your phone screen.
more reading:
EFF busts a Neomedia mobile barcode patent
American brings mobile boarding passes to O'Hare - "Travelers on American can flash a bar code on their cell phone screens to board their flights and get through security checkpoints at O'Hare using new technology rolled out Thursday."
the only question is how well the readers read from my scratched-up screen; if it works, though, it would mean that there's no need to carry that piece of plastic any more.
Scanned my faculty id barcode and so far haven't been able to get it to work with the library scanner & my iPhone. I'll be curious to see if others get it to work, though. Thanks!
Posted by: Andrea | 20 November 2008 at 11:21 AM
I found a barcode generator, free, online:
http://www.idautomation.com/java/linearservlet.html
and created the necessary bits for my blackberry to give this a try.
The image it created was noticably smaller than my actual library card so my hopes are not high, but it might just be a matter of scaling up to the right screen resolution.
Posted by: Edward Vielmetti | 21 November 2008 at 02:27 AM
Thanks for the info. Here is another way to generate barcode: http://barcodez.net
Posted by: dora | 09 December 2008 at 11:57 PM