Microsoft Tag has been in beta for years now, it’s finally final these days, but maybe it should still be in beta. Microsoft Tag is a high capacity color barcode that can be integrated with imagery to transfer larger amounts of data between real-world objects and mobile devices. The tags generally represent a website URL so that when scanned, a specific website will load within your mobile browser. This can be anything related to the object you’re scanning, such as train schedules, product coupons, ticket purchasing, etc.
Unfortunately, as you’ll see in our video walkthrough of the Tag Reader software below, there are still a few bugs (at least on the HTC HD2.) The camera is unable to autofocus and the orientation is rotated 90 degrees. Both of those bugs make it very difficult to properly scan tags.
Have you tried Microsoft Tag? Have you seen these Tags anywhere besides the Microsoft Tag Website?
Originally published on Pocketnow on June 2, 2010. More Software articles from the Pocketnow archive.