The arrival of camera-enabled mobile phones from the world’s top three handset manufacturers; the Motorola A820, the Nokia 7650 and SonyEricsson's P800 provides new opportunities to access information, services and graphics. Using new technology from a partnership between International Wireless and Bango.net, users can now simply point a ‘seeing’ handset at a bar code and content is delivered straight to the mobile phone creating an instant transaction.

"I could purchase theatre tickets by scanning a code on a poster or download a train timetable simply by scanning a bar code at the train station," said Anil Malhotra, Director of Alliances at Bango.net. "There are endless possibilities such as this for people to receive highly targeted and up-to-date information when they are on the move."

Content providers register the bar codes as Bango Numbers and then link these to specific content such as pictures, text, video and sound, located on mobile-enabled web sites and data servers. International Wireless' CodePoint software interprets these symbols and sends a coded number to Bango.net where it is mapped onto a specific URL.

"We're working with leading handset manufacturers on embedding the CodePoint software into handsets and expect to announce partnerships in this area shortly" said Kevin Wells, President, CodePoint Division of International Wireless. "As the Bango.net platform also enables charging for content, businesses now have the ability to collect micro-payments for premium content, opening up significant revenue opportunities from the use of mobile phones."

The CodePoint software will also be available via download from mobile operators' servers for those without the embedded bar code reading software in their handsets. "This provides an excellent way for operators to drive more usage of billable data services," commented Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango.net. "This integrated service offers the ultimate user experience in content delivery."