Sony CyberCode

Following up on Sony's earlier research paper from 1998 I found this article from 2000 by the same team. In this article Sony's developers created a system they dubbed “CyberCode”. CyberCode is an augmented reality system that was designed for the capability of identifying a tracking marker and responding with predefined actions. The software acts as a foundation for several applications that the Sony team created to demonstrate usability. Examples ranged from better interactive museum layouts to extended desktop space using the table your computer is on to giving new sense to the words “drag and drop” by allowing paper codes to be placed on printers to execute a print command.

While not the same direction as the previous article, this article also discusses the other identifiers that were considered and explained the pros and cons for each one. For example, infrared beams are unobtrusive and can be detected more reliably than scanning a code. The downfall is in mounting the device and the need to replace dead batteries. 1D barcodes were also considered but such required more specific scanning devices than were commercially feasible depending on the application. The team settled on using the 2D marker patterns for the ease of placement and rapid development.  


Source:  http://hercules.infotech.monash.edu.au/EII-CAC/CAPapers/Rekimoto_CyberCodeDesignAugmentedReality_ACM_DARE_2000_pp1-10.pdf