En-co.de : a web service for augmenting physical objects with an active digital presence

Abstract

It is now possible for physical objects to have a dynamic digital presence via active identification codes that can be scanned via ubiquitous devices such as smart phones or tablets. En-co.de is a web service for the generation, storing, retrieval, and augmentation of metadata associated with physical objects. The service is built upon the concept that metadata associated with an object can be retrieved through a Quick Response (QR) coded URL. En-co.de serves to link a physical entity to a digital archive of information and provides services such as geolocation and SMS text alerts when an object's identifier, or tag, is scanned. I provide an analysis of QR code qualitative characteristics, the architecture for the en-co.de web service, a scalability study of the en-co.de architecture, and the results of the completed service in production in this report. In addition, the analysis is complemented with an evaluation of comparable identification schemes and web services.