Tag, you're it
With the launch of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has made it clear that it's not about to lie down and let Google take-over the (non-Apple) smartphone OS market. So it comes as a bit of a surprise to see Microsoft announce the release of its first app on the Android store.
Microsoft Tag Reader is already available on pretty much all the other phone platforms - including iPhone - so it would have looked pointed, at least, for Android to be the only omission. Regardless, this marks a small milestone in relations between the two tech giants.
What is Tag Reader? Well you might ask, because it's a pretty interesting technology that could be one of the ways in which the mass market becomes accustomed to things like location-based services and NFC (near field communication).
Tag Reader uses the phone's camera to recognise a unique grid pattern comprised of coloured triangles. The free software then uses that information to direct you to specific websites, content, etc. One of the appealing things about it is that it doesn't require any new technology - just the now ubiquitous phone camera.
For this reason it could be a threat to the near-term take-up of NFC technology, as promoted by ARM and NXP at this year's MWC. NFC not only requires a new chip in your phone, special terminals need to be made too. Having said that, NFC is a lot more powerful - allowing dynamic transactions, as opposed to one-way information - so this sort of thing may just increase demand for NFC in future.
