wikiproductia.org with barcode scanner apps — The ultimate consumer tools
Why?
- Over 175 dangerous chemicals found in food packaging: Substances are linked to cancer, fertility and birth defects
- One third of the greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture and food production
- ...(you could probably expand this list better than me)
The idea
Basically the idea consists of two parts:- A wiki site where products are stored under their barcode number. This will hopefully describe the product in a less biased way than the manufacturers own description of it.
- A Barcode-Scanner-App (shopper-app) which means that shoppers can scan the products, and can already in the store read this information.
The wiki-site
Using Mediawiki (which is used for wikipedia etc) for the wiki software.The scanner app
The idea is that the scanner-app scans the code, say 123456789, the app adds it a url to something like http://wikiproductia.org/123456789 and opens it in a browser. When finished reading the shopper hits the back button and can immediately scan the next item.The android scanner app
Actually there are already apps that work pretty much like described above. Ex: Barcode scanner from from ZXing (Zebra Crossing). The drawback is that the app is not as streamlined as it could be. The shopper has to enter the url in the settings, and it offers so much other functionality and buttons that I see a small risk of confusion, errors and frustration. However for a custom app (a streamlined app (with fewer options and buttons)), there seem to be several well tested "programming libraries" available.The iPhone scanner app
There are several stock barcode scanner apps available. I haven't tested them all but some of them might already work. For a custom app, I searched for "iphone barcode scanner library" and one can find programming libraries that seem well embraced.Web app
After a little bit or research: barcode_scanner_web_app, I've unfortunately found that the technology isn't mature yet (On most devices the camera would only work with fixed focus (not auto focus which is needed at close range))My commitment
The idea for the wikisite is either use a mediawiki hosting service (Mediawikis own list). Or alternatively to install mediawiki on a normal webhosting service like http://one.com .I have no experience with iPhone apps and only very little experience of Android apps so I don't intend to commit myself there. I think that a wiki-site would still be quite usable with the stock scanners. However one could hope that other people (who know Android/iPhone-apps better) maybe could set up own fundraisers for more streamlined (user friendly) scanners.
(A web-app-scanner seem to have to be something for the future maybe.)