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Originally Posted by jaxx6166
I always pictured the future of ereaders having a barcode scanner somewhere on them. You go to the bookstore and shop for your book, scanning the barcode for purchase or wishlist. Have it download while you're still in store. It works out much better than my current pen and paper method =)
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As is usual, Japan is closer to that future than the rest of us. QR code reading is common on phones available in Japan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code
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Why not encode the whole book into a high density "barcode", or even a microchip/usb device atached to the 3x5 card. Chips are getting so cheap, or at least, maybe they can sell collections of books this way.
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This can be done now-- the question is the practical data density of the system, after taking into account limiting factors like the grain of the paper, how much the ink spreads into the paper (look closely at ink on paper-- it doesn't have crisp edges, it flows a bit) and resolution of the camera that would be reading the code. I don't know how big a "real world" square of data would have to be to encode the hundreds of kilobytes or more needed for a book. See:
http://www.adams1.com/stack.html