An App That Uses Light Signals To Send Secret Messages

Japanese camera company Casio has developed a free iPhone app that uses light to send messages to other phones.

The ‘PicapiCamera’ is said to be the “world’s first iPhone app which uses visible light communication technology”, according to DigInfo TV.

Messages are encoded, and sent using red, green and blue flashing lights in the app.

When other phones capture the flashing lights within the app, the data is transferred to them—the ‘camera’ approach to communicating data.

“A device that captures light is a camera, so the idea is to relate light obtained by a camera to information. We’re using the camera approach—visible light communication through image sensors,” Nobuo Iizuka of Hamura R&D Center said.

When exchanging information, the system lets more than one person get the information at one go.

In the future, the technology could be implemented into digital signage solutions.

“It’s hard to read a QR code from a long range, but with this system, the camera only needs to capture a few pixels that make up a block of color,” Iizuka said. “For example, if you can get, say, 30cm making up a very small part of signage in front of a station, you can send information maybe a hundred meters. So this system differs from QR codes by having a long range and enabling multiple content downloads.”  [via]

PicapCamera can be found on the iTunes store.