The Future?

Here's a "New York Times" article about the growing use of cellphone-readable bar codes. This is already popular in some other countries, like Japan. Basically, imagine bar codes on everything (a prescription for medicine, a movie ticket, a magazine ad, a billboard, a web site, etc.) that can be read by your cellphone (via its camera). When you make your cellphone read a bar code, your cellphone will display information (like text or video) regarding whatever has the bar code. Summarily, much more information (the text and videos on your cellphone) will be more easily accessible while taking up less space (just a printed bar code and the information linked to it stored in a server somewhere).

It seems like a good idea to me - interfacing with the world using our cellphones. Maybe someday technology will become so advanced that we will interface with a virtual world using a surgically implanted plug at the base of our necks. Oh wait, that's "The Matrix" :P