Data entry for mobile phones has always been limited by the phone's numeric keypad. One way to overcome this is through two-dimensional bar-codes read by the phone's camera. This paper presents two-dimensional bar-code reading using camera phones. Bar-code reading applications use the phone's camera to capture an image of a bar-code, and then use the phone's processor for decoding. They have been mostly developed in native code for a limited number of phone platforms. In contrast, development for Java-enabled phones allows bar-code reading regardless of the phone manufacturer and/or platform. It is argued that Java is a viable alternative if software is carefully crafted. A review of attempts in the use of mobile phones as bar-code readers, and a novel implementation of this technology, with very promising results, are presented.
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