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TopIntroduction
The wide deployment of wireless networks and mobile technologies and the significant increase in the number of mobile device users have created a very strong demand for emerging mobile commerce applications and services. According to Gao, Prakash, and Jagatesan (2007), 2D barcodes can be used to support pre-sale, buy-and-sell, and post-sale activities for mobile commerce transactions. For example, 2D barcodes can be used as advertisements, coupons, or promotional materials that can be captured and decoded by users with mobile devices. Moreover, 2D barcodes enable mobile devices to become a point-of-sale device that reads the barcode and facilitates payment transactions. After a payment transaction, 2D barcodes can be used by customers as a receipt or proof of purchase to gain access to the purchased goods and services with their mobile phones. Recently, people are gradually realized the importance of 2D barcode and its great application value in M-Commerce because of the followings (Gao, Prakash, & Jagatesan, 2007).
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2D barcodes provide a new effective input channel for mobile customers carrying mobile devices with inbuilt cameras.
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2D barcode is becoming a popular approach to present semantic mobile data with standard formats.
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2D barcodes support a new interactive and efficient approach between mobile customers and wireless application systems.
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2D barcode technology can be and is being used in diverse applications in mobile commerce.
Similar to RFID-based technology and solution, barcode-based identification and validation solutions have considered as an important part of electronic commerce systems, particularly in electronic supply chain systems. However, although there are many benefits of using 2D barcodes, they are not widely utilized in the United States especially in mobile commerce. This paper reports the research, architecture, design, security, and issues of implementing a 2D barcode validation system to encourage readers to adopt this technology into mobile commerce systems. This barcode-based validation solution is developed based on the Data Matrix 2D-Barcode standard. Furthermore, the paper also demonstrates its application by building a mobile movie ticketing system.
This paper is structured as follows. The next section covers the basics of 2D barcodes and related supporting technologies. Furthermore, it reviews the related work and applications in mobile commerce and presents a 2D barcode based validation system, including the system architecture, functional components, and used technologies as well as its secure 2D barcode-based framework. In addition, it reports its application in a movie ticketing prototype system in mobile commerce. Finally, the conclusion remarks are given in the last section.
TopUnderstanding 2D Barcodes And Supporting Technologies
Although there are a number of widely used 2D barcodes today, different barcodes and standards are used in different countries and industry segments. Figure 1 shows the samples of three popular types of 2D barcodes. Quick Response (QR) code is mostly used in Japan. It can encode not only binary and text data, but also Japanese characters. Japanese companies use them to encode product information. Data Matrix 2D barcodes are popularly used in United States (IEEE Computer Society, 2005). They are printed on parcel labels on product packages to track the shipment and identify of products in supply chains. Organizations using Data Matrix include NASA, United State Postal Office, and the US Department of Defense (IEEE Computer Society, 2005). Both QR code and Data Matrix have been standardized by International Standard Organization (ISO). Other 2D barcodes include ColorCode, VS Code, Visual Code, Shot Code, etc (Kato & Tan, 2007b).