Pop band uses QR codes

The Pet Shop Boys are using the new QR codes as a campaign tool in their new video, Integral, says The Sun.

The pair loaded the links into the promo for their new single. Using the i-nigma technology in phones, fans simply scan the bar codes shown in the video to access a whole host of Internet links.

The links then produce online content about civil liberties issues the band is publicising and allows viewers to get personally involved in the campaign.

The Metro Manila Development Authority has announced that next week it will start its radio frequency identification of passenger buses, amid an inter-agency drive to weed out non-franchised units and extorting policemen and traffic enforcers, says Manila Standard Today.

The system aims to ensure that buses are dispatched according to passenger demand to solve overcrowding on roads and at bus stops.

Last Monday, several prominent people in the transport industry met with sector leaders on the upgraded routing scheme.

A national standard for smart card identification has been launched to ensure multiple cards can be read by a single reader, says ZDNet Asia.

Spring Singapore, a government body that establishes industry standards, said one reader is all that will be needed in the future to scan e-passports and ID cards or devices based on a smart card chip, that are aligned with the standard.

Dubbed the Singapore Standard for Smart Card ID (SSID), or SS 529 SSID, the standard is expected to facilitate interoperability between different chip-based identification (ID) cards and their readers, by specifying the data structure, security and access requirements contained in ID cards or devices based on a smart card chip.