High Capacity Color Barcode is a technology developed by Microsoft for
encoding data in a 2D "barcode" using clusters of colored triangles instead of
the square pixels conventionally associated with 2D barcodes or QR codes.
Data density is increased by using a palette of 4 or 8 colors for the
triangles, although HCCB also permits the use of black and white when
necessary. It has been licensed by the ISAN International Agency for use in its
International Standard Audiovisual Number standard, and serves as the basis
for the Microsoft Tag mobile tagging application .
The technology was created by Gavin Jancke, an engineering director at
Microsoft Research. Quoted by BBC News in 2007, he said that HCCB was not
intended to replace conventional barcodes. "'It's more of a 'partner'
barcode', he said. 'The UPC barcodes will always be there. Ours is more of a
niche barcode where you want to put a lot of information in a small space.'"
Technology HCCB uses a grid of colored triangles to
encode data. Depending on the target use, the grid size, symbol density, and
symbol count can be varied. HCCB can use an eight-, four-, or two-color palette.
Microsoft claims that laboratory tests using standard off-the-shelf printers
and scanners have yielded readable eight-color HCCBs equivalent to
approximately 3,500 characters per square inch.
Microsoft Tag Microsoft Tag is an implementation of
HCCB using 4 colors in a 5 x 10 grid. Additionally, the code works in
monochrome. The print size can be varied to allow reasonable reading by a mobile
camera phone; for example, a Tag on a real estate sign might be printed large
enough to be read from a car driving by, whereas a Tag in a magazine could be
smaller because the reader would likely be nearer.
A Microsoft Tag is essentially a machine readable web link, analogous to a URL
shortening link: when read, the Tag application sends the HCCB data to a
Microsoft server, which then returns the publisher's intended URL. The Tag reader
then directs the user's mobile browser to the appropriate website. Because of
this redirection, Microsoft is also able to track users and provide Tag analytics
to publishers. When the platform was released creation
of tags for both commercial and noncommercial use was free, as were the
associated analytics. In 2013, the process for creating new accounts was
transferred to Scanbuy, which said that "A free plan will also be offered from
ScanLife with the same basic features", although additional features may be
available at extra cost. = Consumer=
Users can download the free Microsoft Tag reader application to their
Internet-capable mobile device with camera, launch the reader and read a tag
using their phone’s camera. Depending on the scenario, this triggers the intended
content to be displayed. Some GPS-equipped phones can, at the user's
option, send coordinate data along with the HCCB data, allowing
location-specific information to be returned.
= Application= The Microsoft Tag application gives
people the ability to use a mobile phone's on-board camera to take a
picture of a tag, and be directed to information in any form, such as text,
vCard, URL, Online Photos, Online Video or contact details for the publisher.
Two-dimensional tags can be used to transform traditional marketing media
into gateways for accessing information online. Tags can be applied as gateways
from any type of media to an internet site or online media.
The Microsoft Tag reader application is a free download for an Internet-capable
mobile device with a camera. The Microsoft Tag reader is compatible with
Internet-capable mobile devices, including many based on the Windows
Phone 7, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Java, Android, Symbian S60, iPhone and
Java ME platforms. = Discontinuation=
On August 19, 2013 Microsoft sent out an email notice that the Microsoft Tag
service will be terminated in two years on August 19, 2015. Scanbuy has been
selected to support Microsoft Tag technology on the ScanLife platform
beginning September 18th, 2013. Related technologies
Xerox Parc DataGlyphs are a related technology as they use a barcode like
technology to encode data—however it is possible to use color images as the
source material. Color Construct Code is one of the few
other barcode symbologies designed to take advantage of multiple colors. But,
instead of encoding a single tag, it is designed to store files including
multimedia, possibly along with a URI See also
CueCat, an earlier technology similar to Microsoft Tag
QR code Data Matrix
References External links
Microsoft Tag homepage