Bing Vision barcode scanning working in even more European countries

January 30, 2012 | By Liwen Guo

The barcode scanning feature in Bing Vision has apparently been enabled not only in France, but all across Europe, as The Verge is reporting.

Previously, if you were outside the US, it was only possible to scan QR codes and Microsoft Tags using the built-in Bing application on Windows Phone 7.5. However, this feature is now rolling out to many European countries, where the results point you to the Ciao shopping comparison site which Microsoft bought in 2008. We’ve confirmed ourselves that barcode scanning is working in Germany; after a reboot of the device, tapping the eye icon in Bing will show the text “Scan barcodes, QR codes, Microsoft Tags, books, CDs and DVDs”.

Since Ciao is available in France, UK, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy and Sweden, we’d presume barcode scanning has been enabled in all these countries as well. Let us know whether this is the case for you in the comments below.

About Liwen Guo

I've been tinkering with smartphones since the old Windows Mobile days, creating the popular Livven Themes series. Since then I've moved on to an HTC HD2, running Windows Phone 7.5, and Galaxy Nexus, running Android 4.0. I also have an iPod touch. Visit my website and follow me on Twitter.

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http://www.facebook.com/EDDS86 Rick Dodkins

If you read the comments in your previous article you would have been able to post this yesterday.

http://livven.me/ Livven

There’s a lot going on here, we (or at least I) can’t monitor all the comments. Thanks for the heads-up though!

Anonymous

It definitely works in the UK, although with the limited testing I’ve done, I found the results it returned in Ciao a bit lacking. There were almost no sites to compare unless there is something I’m missing?
Per Elversson

Sweden confirmed just tried my snacks and my soda yay
Anonymous

Well… It does a search… But on my “Nyponsoppa” it only sent me to a site saying it was overloaded.

Per Elversson

just tried everything from snacks to hand desinfektant and everything works perfectly .
Probably something with the site that you are sent to or something. try again.

http://twitter.com/Johannespreekt Johannespreekt

I can confirm it works in the Netherlands

Now I’m very curious when they will activate music recognition feature???

https://profiles.google.com/christopher.gull/ CG

Same here!

Same here!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=703052277 Jens Veraa

Nothing in Belgium… Can’t wait to use ALL the functions available, this sucks
Anonymous

Works in Italy, too.
Still unable to perform local searches or use local scout though; maybe with windows phone 10…
http://www.facebook.com/bessard Michaël Bessard

OK, so I live in France and just spent a few minutes giving it a try. While for the most part, it didn’t work, it did suceed in finding a few US comic books and novels and in one instance a French novel.
However, I SWEAR on Joe Belfiore’s head, food item results were most interesting: for a normal-sized Nutella jar, I got a Nintendo Wiimote, for a Hello Kango chocolate cookie pack, I got a Fleshlight Insertvagin and for a Barilla n°23 coquillettes pack (pasta), I got a Doc Johnson Gode (simply put, a dildo).
I thought maybe my region settings was causing trouble, so I switched it from English US to French FR. Same results.

I can’t wait to hear other people’s findings… D
Jimbob

Works OK but RedLaser is much better.
Juanjo Sánchez Bello

Works fine in Spain!!!