Living Smart

028 029 I ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY Yet, some sections that are necessary for FAA might not be so for the Civil Aviation Administration of China. This would lead to some critical decisions in the near future on how many design changes are necessary, and how much money Comac would be willing to invest. All aircraft design processes experience multiple setbacks and delays. With support from Beijing and a strong research and development team, C919 can be successful and it is possible to enter the market in the early 2020s. However, it’ d be very challenging, if not impossible, to have a 100 percent locally designed and produced aircraft by 2025. Published on March 27, 2019 Bigger Pi for all in new barcodes Prof. MOW Wai-Ho Professor, Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering C ompared with the mainland, Hong Kong seems to be lagging behind in adopting QR codes for financial transactions. However, innovators in Hong Kong are not standing still in developing the next generation of barcodes that can revolutionize the way we do business. For example, my research team is continuing to work on PiCode, a barcode variant that utilizes images instead of the black-and-white lines and blocks that comprise conventional barcodes and QR codes. We have spent almost five years researching picture- and video-embedded codes, and are now in the demonstration phase. Picture-embedded barcodes offer considerable potential in consumer marketing. Many people may find regular barcodes intrusive, and businesses have searched for ways to transmit data and information to consumers in a more pleasing format. Video-embedded codes work by embedding data into a video, which can be regarded as a series of picture-embedded codes, and consumers can find out more about a particular product by pointing their phone cameras, equipped with a customized software scanner, at it. While today’ s QR codes are frequently used to make simple financial transactions or send discount coupons, a video-embedded code is capable of transmitting more complex materials, such as a product brochure, without relying on internet connections. For example, say you’ re promoting an organic food market