IBM Debuts Food Traceability iPhone App
Today at the IBM Information on Demand event, IBM will demo a new app that will bring the Internet of Things to the iPhone. The as yet unreleased iPhone app is called Breadcrumbs and it will give consumers access to information about grocery food items. The app will be able to scan barcodes and deliver a summary of the ingredients in a food item, along with when it was manufactured. That data is usually on the food label, but Breadcrumbs goes a step further - it can provide extra information such as product recall data. If a product has been recalled in the past, this app will tell the consumer all of the relevant details.
Breadcrumbs is able to scan barcodes using the iPhone's camera. The consumer simply points their iPhone at a food item and gets back relevant data. Other than product recall details, the information returned to the user is mostly the same as what's on food labels - only it is pulled from the Web.
IBM told ReadWriteWeb that when 4G becomes common place in mobile phones, then apps such as Breadcrumbs will become more powerful and be readily used on-the-fly by consumers when grocery shopping.
The larger trend here is the convergence of smart phones with the Internet of Things (i.e. Internet-connected real world objects). Devices such as the iPhone essentially become sensor and RFID readers, which allow consumers to interact with real world objects in a much more detailed manner.
Breadcrumbs is a glimpse of what we'll see in the near future, when information will literally - finally - be at the consumer's fingertips when they're shopping for groceries or any other goods where data is plentiful. Up till now, data such as product recall information has largely been inaccessible to consumers - at least when at the grocery store.
In the long term expect to see apps like Breadcrumbs provide data on where and when food items get consumed, together with how long they were on the shelf before being consumed. Apps like Breadcrumbs may even be able to tell who consumed the items (privacy advocates, start your engines!). These apps will also be useful in determining counterfeit items, for example when buying an expensive luxury good.
The date that Breadcrumbs will be launched on iPhone has not yet been announced by IBM.
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This is a great step forward for the food industry in North America!
A similar system has already been in place in Austria for several years called http://www.zurueckzumursprung.at/ (Return to the Source). The premise of Zurueck zum Ursprung is to establish accountability for organically grown foods and to make consumers aware of how far food travels to reduce CO2 emissions. It is notable that this system was established to create trust and transparency within the food industry.
Zurueck zum Ursprung is also more along the lines of spime, then simply a bar-code reader based system.
http://www.zurueckzumursprung.at/fileadmin/swf/erlebniswelt.html
Bread Crumbs indeed is a great application and if only they could extend the same to the medicine purchase for validating the genuine medicines from fake. Apart from the expiry date.
It would be great hit in Indian market especially where generic medicines are available in every street corner. The tier II and Tier III towns need such tools to be empowered.
RK Dhanvada
Hyderabad , India
Soo... What's interesting for me is; where is this database?
This is obviously just as useful on any Android phone. Or Maemo or anything else for that matter.
And how is it updated? Will it just work in the US? It'd be very cool if it could use a Wikipedia-for-food, or it would rather be like those free databases. Because it would probably primarily be data dumps every week or so from the manufacturers etc.
Posted by: velmont.no
|
October 26, 2009 4:44 AM
Sounds great. I wonder if u know if there is or will be a corresponding app for pharmaceuticals?
David Finer
Medical writer
Stockholm
Sweden
www.finermedia.se
While IBM's "marketing muscle" will surely "push" this Application, I'm more concerned about the comment above: "Other than product recall details, the information returned to the user is mostly the same as what's on food labels - only it is pulled from the Web." Given all of the attention focused on User Supported Data, Poison U.P.C.'s, etc. I would be very hesitant to rely on Data that was NOT supported or obtained directly from Manufacturers and/or validated. With regard to Product Recalls, GS1 and the USDA have begun an initiative that should "shore up" any Data issues in that area. But the principal Nutrition and Ingredient Data would be a concern.
Time to call the engineering department and tell them to stop the development of our new iphone app.
Thanks IBM! You saved us a bunch of work. We would appreciate if you could incorporate a consumer rating system for fresh produce also. If not we are still going to have to develop that ourselves.
www.Top10Produce.com
Any idea where they got the barcode scanning technology from and if it works on the iPhone 3G?
It would be useless for sifting through gray market or black market pharmaceuticals on the street, as the vendors will just copy a legitimate label anyway.
This app is also going to be useless for most food shoppers most of the time because some enormous majority of food products have never been recalled. As noted in the article, all other info provided by the app is already on the label. So people will not be motivated to waste a lot of time and effort scanning products while grocery shopping if the first few dozen have no useful info.
However, the app might be helpful during an actual product scare like that US industrial peanut butter recall to reassure nervous consumers that given products are still safe to purchase.
NeoMedia Technologies grandfathered this technology back in the mid 90's and have been doing mobile code scanning and comparison shopping via barcodes long before any other company in this space.
NeoMedia on ABC & NBC News circa 2004:
http://www.qode.com/videos/PaperClickOnAbc7.wmv
http://www.qode.com/videos/PaperClickOnNbc8.wmv
NeoMedia has a rich patent portfolio that covers scanning barcodes with a camera enabled mobile device to connect to the Internet, comparison shop, and/or retrieve online content.
http://www.qode.com/en/patents.jsp
I love seeing all the 800 pound gorillas like IBM, Microsoft & Google trying to enter this space and grab a slice of the pie.
The only problem is that NeoMedia owns the patents that cover this technology. Patents that date back to the mid 90's & the earliest core art.
NeoMedia just partnered with NeuStar who will act as NeoMedia's licensing agent in the US. Also, NeoMedia's long time rival and competitor Scanbuy just signed a 10 year royalty based licensing agreement with NeoMedia, which further strengthens the IP.
How long until IBM or Microsoft buys NeoMedia and their valuable patent portfolio and dominates the mobile barcode market?
The OMA & GSMA are defining the standards. CTIA is about to award the code registry & clearinghouse to NeuStar. The ecosystem is nearly complete & about to come online.
Get ready!
Related video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMEpSnOoD1w
See same logo at the end...
Now IBM can control food, utilities, medicine and water with their Smarter Planet mantra. Lets not forget Ibmandtheholocaust.com and what they achived with the Hollerith Machine.
About the conspiracy theory above: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/1388.wss