First barcodes, now semacodes
http://semacode.org/ (external link)
Finally, a real use for camera phones: reading semacodes. Barcodes identify individual items or products to machine readers; our modern supermarkets and delivery systems would break down without them. Semacodes are a web equivalent, they identify individual web pages. Point your camera phone at the image above, hit the right button on your semacode enabled camera phone and whoosh!, you're taken to a specific webpage.
Print a semacode on the back of your business card and direct clients to your site. All they have to do is let their camera phone image it. No more typing in hideously long URLs. Use semacodes in print magazine ads so customers can find out more about your product or to order it. Neat, eh? How about printing a semacode on registration papers for new products? Scan the code, wirelessly connect to the manufacturer, register, and be done with it. That would make life easier.
Semacode's site is lost in geekspeak, it's a web developer's site, really, but I think the idea is a good one and if kept out of Microsoft's hands might actually succeed. As ubiquitous as barcodes are now, semacodes might someday rival them in number.