Device and method for contact information exchange
View Patent ↗A method and device exchanging contact information on an electronic device. Contact information is obtained from a contact by scanning a barcode using an electronic device and decoding the barcode to recover the contact information encoded therein. The contact information may be used to reciprocate by sending user contact data in a message addressed to an electronic address obtained from the contact information. The user contact data may be encoded in a second barcode displayed on the electronic device.
1. A method of exchanging contact information using an electronic handheld device, the electronic handheld device having a camera, a display screen, and a memory storing user contact data and authentication data, the method comprising:
receiving an electronic address from a second handheld device;
sending the authentication data to the electronic address;
scanning a barcode displayed on the second handheld device to obtain second data;
verifying that the second data matches the authentication data to authenticate the electronic address.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the authentication data is pre-established.
3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, prior to sending the authentication data, generating the authentication data.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the authentication data is one of a numeric string, an alphanumeric string, and a binary string.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the barcode includes the authentication data.
6. The method of claim 5 , wherein scanning a barcode includes capturing an image of the barcode and decoding the barcode to obtain the second data.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the electronic address is one of an email address, a telephone number, and an instant messaging address.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving an electronic address includes scanning a first barcode displayed by the second handheld device.
9. The method of claim 8 , wherein scanning the first barcode includes capturing an image of the first barcode and decoding the image to obtain the electronic address.
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the barcode is a two-dimensional barcode.
11. An electronic handheld device comprising:
a display screen;
a camera;
memory storing user contact data and authentication data;
a processor; and
a code reader application executable by the processor and containing instructions which, when executed by the processor, configure the processor to:
receive an electronic address from a second handheld device;
send the authentication data to the electronic address;
scan a barcode displayed on the second handheld device to obtain second data;
verify that the second data matches the authentication data to authenticate the electronic address.
12. The electronic handheld device of claim 11 , wherein the authentication data is pre-established.
13. The electronic handheld device of claim 11 , wherein the instructions, prior to configuring the processor to send the authentication data, configure the processor to generate the authentication data.
14. The electronic handheld device of claim 11 , wherein the authentication data is one of a numeric string, an alphanumeric string, and a binary string.
15. The electronic handheld device of claim 11 , wherein the barcode includes the authentication data.
16. The electronic handheld device of claim 15 , wherein the processor is configured to scan a barcode by capturing an image of the barcode and decoding the barcode to obtain the second data.
17. The electronic handheld device of claim 11 , wherein the electronic address is one of an email address, a telephone number, and an instant messaging address.
18. The electronic handheld device of claim 11 , wherein the processor is configured to receive an electronic address by scanning a first barcode displayed by the second handheld device.
19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the processor is configured to scan the first barcode by capturing an image of the first barcode and decoding the image to obtain the electronic address.
20. A tangible computer-readable medium storing processor-executable instructions that, when executed, configure one or more processors within an electronic handheld device to exchange contact information with a second handheld device, the electronic handheld device having a camera, a display screen, and a memory storing user contact data and authentication data, the processor-executable instructions comprising:
instructions for receiving an electronic address from the second handheld device;
instructions for sending the authentication data to the electronic address;
instructions for scanning a barcode displayed on the second handheld device to obtain second data; and
instructions for verifying that the second data matches the authentication data to authenticate the electronic address.