Where will online scanning technology go?...

We are all seeing the 2d QR barcodes appearing ..but where will these involve.?. This article in adweek looks at some new start ups in the UK - Aurasma and Blippar - 2 new image-scanning and augmented reality application providers. They move away from barcodes and instead use brand images scanned by the phone to trigger content to the user.
http://shar.es/bXZfR

One of the benefits of ihopto TAG (if used by itself) is that it is simpler and not reliant on a QR reader. It can be used in conjunction with whatever new technology evolves. A user can still remember the brand words, or slogan and use them to enter into our ihopto site or facebook application, or wherever an ihopto search can be made.
One of our ideas is to provide a reader for an ihopto TAG - that would allow the TAG to be read and trigger the online web pages.Wherever a user saw our blue ihopto they could use our scanner to read the words in the TAG. An easier item to scan than a QR code.
We decided initially to combine it with a QR code so people could use the existing readers to start with.