Decode Lodz

What is the Decode Lodz system?

It might seem that Decode Lodz is simply a Tourist Information System, but it’s like saying that a city is only a collection of streets and buildings. In fact, Decode Lodz is a powerful information system for tourists and residents. The system consists of over 70 monuments arranged in three thematic trails. The information plates include the basic information and a smartcode. After scanning the Smartcode with your mobile phone, you are redirected to the mobile web site of a particular monument. It is a comprehensive guide to Lodz, with a variety of information, interesting facts, photos and surprises for users of mobile phones. Just like the city as a collection of streets and buildings is dead – an Information System, even with smartcodes, will not work without its users. Therefore, Decode Lodz is also a series of events and competitions for the city’s residents. Lodz is a fascinating place with a unique history – it only needs to be discovered.
Decode Lodz!

What distinguishes this project from other Information Systems?

There are two main elements: Smartcodes and the events accompanying the project. Smartcodes simply change information plates into links to a variety of information – referring to the mobile pages, which can be easily updated and expanded. Pages can contain multimedia elements, and elements ready to download to the user’s phone. Thanks to that, Decode Lodz system is both user-friendly (available at any time, day or night) and author-friendly (flexible, open for modifications).
Accompanying events are not common practice during the implementation of tourist information in the Polish cities. Above all, such systems are focused on tourists and they completely ignore the needs of residents who spend their everyday lives in the city. Decode Lodz is a system primarily for the residents, it is an invitation to discover their own place! Together with the emergence of smartcode plates in the city, everyone will be able to take part in contests, games and walks with the city guides.

What is the Smartcode?

Each of us knows the bar codes that are placed on any commercial product. Smartcodes are a new generation of graphic codes operating in two dimensions – therefore their other name is 2D codes. What else makes smartcodes exceptional? First of all, by using them one can encode not only numbers, but also other alphanumeric characters. Thanks to this, a smartcode can become a link to the virtual world – a a combination of the real object and the content related to it and published on the Web. Smartcodes can be scanned and decoded with the majority of mobile phones equipped with a camera.

How to use Smartcodes?

1. Find the Smartcode
2. Text DECODE to +48 507 67 69 67 or go to the website http://2dkod.com, and download the special reader: “Fotokody” or “I-nigma” [if you don't have it yet]
3. Run the application
4. Scan the Smartcode with your phone camera
5. Connect to the monument website

Is the use of smartcodes cost anything?

Using smartcodes is free. MobileMS does not charge any fee for scanning smartcodes. The costs that are associated with the use of the system are:
- A one-time fee when you download the application (a charge for a text message and data transfer, 300-400kb)
- Fees for connection to the Internet when you open a mobile page
The webpages of monuments are optimized in such a way so that the charges for data transfer were minimal (one object site is ~100kb)