Occipital today announced the release of the RedLaser iPhone application capable of reading barcodes which sells for $1.99 in the iPhone App Store. RedLaser users simply take a picture of barcode (standard sized barcodes work best) by lining up the code with the onscreen guides provided in the application. The picture is sent to a server where it is processed using Occipital’s algorithms and Google Product Search results (showing the product’s availability and price at stores online) are returned to the user’s phone and can be sent via email. While the concept may seem relatively simple, accurate barcode identification has been a yet unconquered challenge on the iPhone since the phone’s camera does not include auto-focus. This factor leads to images that are too degraded to be read with high accuracy by barcode readers originally made for devices with auto-focus. The one other accurate application that does exist for the iPhone, Snapper, requires the purchase of an iPhone case with a special lens that retails for around $30.
According to Occipital co-founder Jeff Powers, his team was able to accomplish this feat by approaching it differently. Most other attempts “start with an open source product” designed for devices with auto-focus and “try to alter it to read an iPhone picture.” The Occipital team approached the problem “knowing the picture would be degraded” and created a product that would work even with these less than optimal images. The team’s “deep understanding of how to deal with images at the pixel level” based on its previous work helped them create a highly accurate reader. Since at this point the image processing is actually run on the server, the company has the opportunity to continuously improve the algorithm and update it as they see more real world data.
Along with selling the RedLaser App through the App Store, the company will offer a Software Development Kit (SDK). Developers can download the kit for free and will pay $29 for a developer license and a small charge (10% of the app price to a maximum of $0.50) each time any application they create using the RedLaser reader is downloaded. Among the first Apps to take advantage of the Red Laser technology will be Cor.kz which offers a database of over 600,000 wines. The Occipital team has high hopes for additional developer interest in the SDK especially given the chance to use the RedLaser app as a demonstration of the product’s functionality. Powers notes that he frequently tracked Twitter traffic for discussions on “iPhone barcode reader” and found almost daily discussions of ideas to use the functionality in a variety of ways that usually ended in “you can’t read a barcode using an iPhone.” According to Occipital co-founder Vikas Reddy, the team has not ruled out creating additional applications based on the barcode reader internally but wants to maintain its core focus on image analysis and processing.
RedLaser represents Occipital’s first application to be sold through the App Store, although not the company’s first iPhone application. The company previously released ClearCam to improve the quality of photos taken with an iPhone which is available only for jailbroken phones. One of the team’s key learnings from the previous release was to include a way to communicate with those who have downloaded the app which is why they have included such messaging functionality in RedLaser. There are many possibilities for the future applications using RedLaser technology – scan a game barcode and automatically begin to download that game to your home computer – but for now users can at least walk out of Best Buy without that “I got taken” feeling that there was a better price somewhere online. Occipital is based in Boulder, Colorado and is a 2008 alum of TechStars.
