Imagine having a camera phone which can behave like a reader, receiving and displaying coded information from the objects in front of its lens. Sounds far-fetched, in the realm of science fiction? But such technology could be in the market in the near future, says ABI Research, a market research firm."It means using the camera phone not as a picture-taker," says Kenneth Hyers, principal analyst of mobile wireless research at ABI Research, "but as a scanner capturing metadata about products or services related to objects around us. I think we’ll see more of this in coming years."

That data can be visible, as in the case of barcodes or the "QR" codes popular in Japan; or unseen, as in "steganography" which in its current form, announced by Fujitsu in mid-2005, involves hiding information in printed pictures, invisible to the human eye but extractable by Fujitsu’s algorithms in a camera phone."Imagine walking through the park," says Mr Hyers, "and aiming your camera phone at a data tag on a statue. It directs your phone’s browser to a web page about a historic building that used to stand there, or a concert that played there last summer, complete with video clips."

Aim your camera phone at a scene pictured in a magazine, and it could deliver a map or other information about the site, ABI Research says. In a store, you could "scan" a product’s label and get the latest consumer report article about it. In the supermarket, you could retrieve a list of a food’s ingredients to ensure they won’t trigger an allergic reaction.

The research firm says none of this is widely available yet, but some steps towards it are visible. One company, scanR, lets you use your camera phone as a scanner, copier and fax. Nextcode offers free downloadable software that reads certain kinds of barcodes and allows the phone user to download product information, ringtones and wallpapers.

Another company, Mobot, lets consumers photograph advertisements, products and logos, then scans the image using its own visual recognition technology and directs them to related information."But these applications are all proprietary," says Mr Hyers. "A real market for this requires some standardisation, and for marketers, operators, and handset vendors to be ‘on the same page’."

Oracle Corporation has completed the acquisition of Siebel Systems Inc. to become a leader in Customer Relationship Management.

"Oracle is now the undisputed leader in Customer Relationship Management software," said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. "Oracle’s focus on modern, standards-based applications and middleware is moving us into a leadership position in applications and on-demand services. Siebel accelerates that move."

Oracle President Charles Phillips said, "Siebel’s expertise with industry-specific customer-facing applications combined with rich analytics will not only serve as the centrepiece of our CRM strategy for Oracle Fusion Applications, but can also be used to extend our current customers investments today."

Former Siebel stockholders electing to receive Oracle common stock will receive a combination of stock and cash because the stock portion of the consideration was oversubscribed. The pro-rata allocation of cash and stock payable to the electing holders will be announced following receipt of the final election results, which are expected to be available on or about February 2, 2006.

In line with its initiative to step up investments in rural India, software giant Microsoft Corporation on Wednesday announced its new rural initiative to set up 50,000 IT kiosks in the next three years.The kiosks will be set up with the purpose of providing a wide range of information and services related to health, education, communication and agriculture in villages.

"We will set up 50,000 kiosks across India over the next three years. This is a great start but our larger aim is to reach more than 50 per cent of the rural population within three years," said Ranjivjit Singh, Microsoft India group director (consumer business).The initiative, named "Saksham" (self-reliant), would provide local entrepreneurs a chance to set up and manage kiosks on a self-sustaining basis for providing content and services to the rural populace.

The software major has tied up with three non-government agencies — Drishti, Jaikisan and n-Logue — to roll out these kiosks and is also in talks with lending institutions such as State Bank of India to provide funding to local entrepreneurs, Microsoft India managing director Neelam Dhawan said.Microsoft will provide technical support and training to the local youth, who would manage these kiosks. The operators can charge a fee for various services and generate revenues to pay back their loans to the bank, said Mr Singh.

Microsoft is also developing a rural portal powered with content and applications for the rural areas by working with regional and local independent software vendor.The company conducted research at 350 kiosks covering 4,000 users across six states before finalising the plan, he said.