Advanced Information Technology Institute - Ghanaian developers push Semacode tags

location based services

If you've surfed the Internet you probably know what Wikipedia is. For those that don't it is an online, community driven and edited encyclopedia with more than three million articles in a range of languages that has, since its launch in 2001, become one of the most comprehensive sources of information on the Internet. Which is is all well and good when you're sitting at work behind a PC with an Internet connection. But what if you're away from your PC? For example, as a tourist in another country? Wouldn't it be great to access Wikipedia to read up on the historic buildings you find in your travels? Developers at Semacode have a plan to do exactly this: link the physical world with appropriate online information sources including Wikipedia -- or what in this case is called Semapedia. In its simplest form Semacodes are URLs (website addresses) encoded into a two dimensional barcode that can be attached to any physical object. Users with mobile phones equipped with a semacode reader are then able to snap a picture of the barcode with their camera and retrieve the URL and website on their mobile browser.And a group of Ghanaian developers have been quick to embrace the technology and have contributed to developing the underlying code for Semacodes as well as developing applications to build codes. Earlier this week they introduced the new technology to fellow Ghanaians. Guido Sohne, developer-in-residence at the Kofi Annan ICT Centre for Excellence and chief software architect at CoreNett, a Ghanaian electronic transaction processing company, said during his presentation that it was encouraging to find African developers providing code that is being used globally."If it can be done in Ghana, then it can easily be done elsewhere in Africa and even in Asia, Europe and North America too. It is rare to find African-created technology being used today in Western cyberspace so this event is indeed a step forward for African technology as well as an indication of the benefits of collaborative development based on liberal software licencing such as open source software."Semacode was conceived in Canada and includes code that was originally developed in Ghana by local software developers. Simon Woodside, the founder of the Semacode Corporation and the Semacode Organisation contacted Sohne for assistance in developing an early version of Semacode and Sohne in turn recommended Francois Bonin, another developer at the Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence, to develop the software. The significance of Semacode is that one can now link a real world, physical object to arbitrary data. Before there had been no link and traditional barcodes such as those used in stores to label products have limited storage for information and require custom hardware and software to create and read barcodes.Semacode barcodes can be generated with a range of software tools including online ones (http://semapedia.org/, http://sohne.net/semafox/) and are readable with most modern phones using free reader software. An ordinary camera phone, equipped with a Semacode reader software package decodes the semacodes into a URL which can be accessed by the mobile's browser.Semacodes, by embedding a URL into a barcode, enable any portion of the Internet to be 'attached' to any object.SemapediaAlthough Semacodes can be made of any URL, one of the first real applications of the barcodes has been the creation of Semapedia -- or the physical Wikipedia. Founded by Stan Wiechers and Alexis Rondeau Semapedia is a non-profit project that aims to "bring the amazing knowledge from the Wikipedia to places in the 'real' world where it matters. Being able to stand in front of a building and dive into its history right on the spot is something incredible useful to anybody."Doing that by just taking a picture with your mobile phone of a semacode is a very simple interaction that is understandable to everybody. We have been explaining and showcasing the idea to people with no technical background at all and they still immediately understand the use and value of our project."As a community project anyone can go to the Semapedia site and create barcodes that can be printed out and attached to objects and places.Back in Ghana Sohne has continued with Semacode technology by developing free software, licenced under the GNU General Public Licence, to create Semacodes. "The time has come for African content to take its place in the global constellation. We need more African content, and anybody can help add more content to the Wikipedia. So tag something today. It's really easy to do and the software is free," said Sohne.Note: Story By - Alastair Otter, Tectonic.com