Torrent Droid: Scan Barcodes, Get Torrents
Written by enigmax on March 11, 2009You are standing in a store looking for a new DVD to buy. Rather than buying it, you photograph the barcode with your phone and press a couple of buttons. By the time you make it home, the movie is waiting for you in your torrent client. You can with Torrent Droid.
Around a month ago, Android-orientated website Androidandme launched ‘Android Bounty’, a new initiative which has led to the creation of nice little torrent app. To find out more, we spoke to Taylor Wimberly from the site.
“Android Bounty is a new kind of developers challenge we started for creating applications on Google Android,” he told TorrentFreak. “Users submit ideas which can be voted up by others who pledge money to the bounty. The first developer who delivers a working application is rewarded with the bounty.” Taylor explained the idea is similar to how users promote stories on Digg, except people vote with cash.
To start things rolling, a few days later Androidandme set a challenge to its readers – create an Android-compatible BitTorrent application to scan UPC barcodes and find related torrents on the larger BitTorrent search engines. Users would be able to find and start torrents remotely, and the music album or movie would be fully downloaded by the time they got home.
There were some terms and conditions to the challenge. The software would use the G1 cellphone’s inbuilt camera to scan a retail DVD UPC barcode, and use the capture to identify the official details of the product from a database.
Once the product is positively identified, the software should be able to send the results directly to a BitTorrent search engine, such as The Pirate Bay or Mininova. After the search results appear, the user could then choose which torrent to start.
Once selected, the .torrent file would be downloaded and sent to the webUI of uTorrent and the download would begin, hopefully ready for when the user reaches his or her home machine. No typing input would be required for the above.
Just a few weeks later, Alec Holmes of Zerofate had stepped up to the challenge, created the app and collected the modest bounty of $90.00.
“This version of Torrent Droid is a work in progress but the video shows the core features work,” said Alec.
The full version of Torrent Droid will be released within a month but in the meantime, here is a video of it in action.
Previously: P2P Client Does a Deal With the Devil
Next: Top 10 Most Pirated TV Shows on BitTorrent
93 Responses
thats awesome
android sucks. really.
In the words of Cartman: SWWEEET!
It’s just like shop lifting!
Sweet App!
Wow that’s nice! Would be perfect if they made that for usenet too :D
That is just awesome, what a great innovation!
There’s a similar app for Windows Mobile, the name escapes me atm -0 it doesn’t set up the torrent however you can read barcodes using photos or IR port and either look up infomation on many types of product or send the barcodes to people.
Mind you there’s probably going to be a crackdown on people photographing barcodes now :)
how clever
Such a thing can introduce people to BitTorrent that have not heard of it before, and wean people off of funding the MAFIAA:
- perhaps bittorrent could even be brought more to “away from keyboard”?
Impressive, to say the least.
That’s friggin awesome.
Genius!
Amazing.
iphone port on cydia now pls!
@6: You can’t scan a barcode with infrared. Barcode scanners use laser, not infrared :)
Pirates 1, RIAA 0
Wicked! Imagine scanning what you like in the store, the app connects with the torrent client on your home PC and…
@13: yes, they can, since black reflects IR differently than white. But red lasers are probably more common.
okay.. so we have another application to earn the ire of RIAA and MPAA.
While innovative, this thing probably will never see a mass distribution as MAFIAA will be ready with their cannonballs !!!
This thing is pretty cool. I hope they can put together a real release some time soon. I’d pay for such an app.
awesome.
Or… use google.
We realy dont care of the software or hardware restriction.
If the product is popular, it will be available on other cell phone.
embrace the new technology. Hardware support will comming soon!
Its easy with the TCP/IP to set some parameter and se it to a listening port of our pc client torrent. So what, after that, when tv will be on IP, you will open you tv with your cell phone. So what :).
Its easy to do everything these day :)
@14 by Will
Did you just reset the score.
The score is
Pirate : 1000000 RIAA: 4
fucking awesome, i want that phone :P
maybe its just me, but if i see something in the store i want i buy it. its the stuff i CAN’T find in stores that bit torrent is so great for.
I like how it brings you to thepiratebay’s page and let’s you “choose” a torrent as opposed to just finding the first match and throwing it into your torrent client (like that ebay firefox plugin). This could also be very good for queuing up torrents remotely for when you get home.
Can say, LOL OMG and other words what makes me really ROFL…
I love you Alec
Anti-piracy news! (just a joke)
MPAA will sue Wall-mart if they do not comply to install cell phone scramblers on all stores worldwide. This move is a desperate attempt to stop the download of movies from TPB using barcode scanning technology, a cell phone camera and a torrent client webui. A source inside the MPAA also confirmed they will sue all cell phone makers if they do not stop selling phones with cameras and will sue telephony companies if they do not implement the “3 barcodes” policy. MPAA is not stopping there. Their lobbyists are harassing governments and legislators worldwide in order to ban barcodes from the market, saying that anyone that uses this technology in their stores are assisting copyright infringement and will be taken to court.
Wow I’d love to see a S60 version of that
What MAFIAA bullseye?
TPB could start selling t-shirts with huge barcodes, so anyone who meet people using a barcode T-shirt could take a picture and then download the movie the other is sharing through his T-shirt.
TPB could also start providing a barcode BMP image next to each torrent, so anyone could print T-shirts, stickers, mugs and share their favorite downloads on the streets or printed on gifts.
I dont like the idea.. I see no use of it. It’s just EPIC fail, cause if you’re in the store, why the hell not buy the movie?….
Pretty awesome… but we need one for all phones
@31
What if your at a friends house, or a dvd rental place.
@31
Because you want to see if the movie is not a crap before buying.
Screw the iphone (what i was going to get)
im getting the g1
can i buy pizza that way and have it torrented to my door
HAHA
stupid
if they uncapped us and unthorttled us WHO cares about this waste a resources barcoding , and YES barcoding means they TRACK your HABITS
and all your personal info.
This is REALLY cool, although it looked rather difficult to browse the pirate bay on the phone. I think it would be awesome if they can make a lightweight interface for searching TPB from the phone for torrents through an API or something. That way, less scrolling, etc. is needed.
I wonder how far this app can go. I mean you can scan books, comics, CDs, videogames, software. Wow I think I may get an iphone
That is some pretty ingenious app.. tho why he couldn’t type “full metal jacket into TPB originally is beyond me..
@39: Yes, same thing I thought too.
31 Mar 11, 2009 at 20:08 by Anonymous
“I dont like the idea.. I see no use of it. It’s just EPIC fail, cause if you’re in the store, why the hell not buy the movie?….”
=-=-=
That’s the funniest thing I’ve read on TorrentFreak this week!
Thanks for the laugh — you’ve earned your MPAA stipend for the day.
Hey, i need to understand here.
If a barcode is related to a torrent. Then this torrent must be clean and ISO-9001. Because, if i need to find a specific CD, then i chose the best with the most seed.
So what about that? the barcode is seaching the best torrent avalable with some parameter? Or then what.. take a torent with 0 seed/leech?
this is the kind of shit that gives pirates a bad name. if you go into a store intending to buy, but photograph a barcode and walk out… why go there in the first place if you were never intending to buy?
Wow, that is absolutely amazing! I’m in!
RT
http://www.privacy.at.tc
Cool stuff, but really, who goes to a store to check out what might be good based on DVD/CD covers?
I love how it’ll really piss off the establishment though so it gets a thumb up from me.
torrents ftw
“…if you’re in the store, why the hell not buy the movie?”
Eh? Why waste money on something you can get for free? That’s good money that could otherwise be used for more important things, like beer, drugs, and hookers.
Niiice! Way to Go! Blackberry Version please… :)
Seriously, I cannot think of anything more inconsiderate than this app. Waltzing right in, waving your expensive gadget phone around, no intention of buying anything, just going to take a few photos and walk out. This is like five popped collars and two cans of Axe body spray douchebaggery.
Blackberry version needed for sure!
You people DISGUST ME.
I HOPE YOU ALL GO BROKE AND BECOME HOMELESS.
Get rid of the stupid piratebay web interface and just parse an RSS search feed instead:
http://www.mininova.org/rss/full%2Bmetal%2Bjacket/seeds
This is brilliant in the way it makes “piracy” into a social statement, a blatant middle finger to the MAFIAA. They are always painting torrent users as criminals and terrorists who hide in a basement and steal, steal, steal all day long while contributing nothing, but this puts a human face on the people who are using torrents. And guess what? They look just like anyone else, rather than some baby-eating IP-snatching monster.
If we want to overcome, we HAVE to make P2P usage more public and this is a great way of doing it.
@51
You already got your wish, us pirates are mostly already broke and/or homeless. That’s why we’re pirating. (Only half kidding…)
@52
Parsing rss feeds requires manipulating the data and containing it within the application. Using this method any search engine can be used.
Also as a side note, you can download torrent files to the phone from any site on the internet and then upload the torrent to the computer at home. The barcode scanning is just a neat interface to the search.
Don’t go for it. It’s obviously a way to get busted. If you take a picture of a movie in a store, they have you on camera. They also have your phone number. I wouldn’t even attempt it
@56
Who is “They” and how did they get your phone number?
Could the same thing be worked into Megaupload or Rapidshare?
OR
stay at home and type “batman” (or whatever) into Pirate Bay instead
????
To be frank, something about this dosen’t sit well with me. Where I am there are shopkeeps keeping an eye out for shoplifters, security cameras ect. Seems to me that this is just going to make it easy to spot a Pirate.
Not saying it isn’t an impressive innovation, but for the way to use it is to go into a shop and use it where you are obviously going to be spotted? No, fools will get caught doing this and there is no way to talk your way out of it.
That said, I can see advertising posters on the streets having such a barcode slapped on them, giant billboards with them and the like.
Great idea, aiming for the wrong thing…
I was at walmart last night and I always browse the dvd section. I only bought movies off the 5 and 10 dollar racks. All the other expensive new movies over 20 dollars, I take pictures of or write the name in a text message and email it to myself and go home and download them. Which is why this app is perfect. Why would I want to spend well over 100 dollars on 8 seasons of xfiles when I can get them for free? Oh wait, I already did get them for free.
There are other barcode scanner apps on the Market (ex. Shopsavvy).
How would “they” prove that we torrent DVDs? We could just be scanning the barcode to look for a better deal. I think this app is brilliant.
How could*
A hybrid between torrenting, remote access, and barcode scanning. Incredible.
I have ShopSavvy on my G1 and have never been pulled up for using it. If you do get pulled up when using the torrent app just bring up ShopSavvy :-)
G1 FTW!!!
ShopSavvy is a shopping assistant. Users can scan the bar code of any product using their phone’s built-in camera. ShopSavvy will then search for the best prices online and through the inventories of nearby, local stores using the phone’s built-in GPS.
@ 65, thanks for the clarification! ;) yes, ShopSavvy is awesome and I, too, love the G1!
So see, 60 & others, there’s no need to worry. =)
Barcodes will just be used to track pirates, beyond the fact that its useless unless you are Really lazy…
Remote torrent download is good, but not that hard of a concept.
i dont see a need for it…
one could just go to the store, write down the name of movies they want to download, go home and then download it…
all it does is decrease the time one has to wait at home for the 3hrs it takes to download it…
ugh i want this for my iphone
Do you think we will be able to buy that at the iPhone app store too? ;)
oh hell yeah. You know the film companies are going to hate that !!!
I dont see a need for this… if you want this then you have wayy too much time on your hands to go in a store and scan stuff.
iPhone version please, no one has a G1
@ all the people saying you will get caught this way.
How exactly? Taking a photograph in a store is not illegal and downloading is not illegal in most countries, only uploading.
And how would the store know your phone number only your provider will anyway.
Hey all,
If you are a store manager, you call the owner of the app, make a digital version with a price of 2 euro / dollar for each movie and the only thing you need is a wall full of barcodes. (You can even use a computer screen to display them.) You then dont have to move the DVD’s, dont have to risk them being stolen, dont have the risk of damage, dont need personal to handle them… you can make a good buck out of it. And why people would do it?
Because most people would buy movies if the price was attracting. And by this your favorite medium (BitTorrent is used to get it in).
Let it come!
Cheerz,
That is slick!!! Where is the iPhone version!! lol
Lol look out for stores watching you scanning bar codes ha ha ha
I can’t believe people is making something so useless like this why to go to a store if u can seach online for a movie and just TYPE IT! without even going out is just useless adding more to the fact that everyone including the stores personal knows that you are a pirate
way too geeky for squeaky
ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY GOOGLE!!!
They violate privacy, show ‘evil’ torrents, and still can’t be taken to court by the MPAA/RIAA assfucks.
I guess its better to have no privacy and get stuff for free than pay for shit and be told not to use it.
That’s one of the most impressive things I have ever seen
I think it’s a nice demonstration of the capabilities of modern day technologies, and an apt example of just what the content industries are up against.
It’s the system that’s broke.
I say go for it! Who is Alec hurting?
The megalomaniac companies? So what!
I think it’s great to have something like this. Movies are too freaking expensive to go to these days, and Wal-Mart doesn’t need any more money!
Congrats to you Alec! This is awesome and I look forward to seeing the evolution of this project.
please make for pocket pc!!!!!!
This will make the MPAA go crazy!
@ everyone who is all “omg look out for people catching you”:
a: like what has been said already, people already scan barcodes for the likes of shopsavvy, and obviously no one gets in trouble for it, if anything happens you just switch to that application and go from there.
b: as popular as torrentfreak is, I doubt greatly that most mainstream/non-pirate people would read this or know about this software, so I doubt people would instantly think “omg he’s a pirate” unless the person thinking that was also a pirate who has heard about this.
@ the ‘why don’t you just stay home and check it out there’ crowd – how many times have you gone out, saw something you haven’t even heard of before, looked @ the back or even pulled up reviews on your phone, and bought it there and then. I know I have, I can’t stay at home and search for something that I haven’t seen yet.
now, time to splurge and get a half decent phone that could support this software imo.
Good movies, like good music, costs money to make. Real money. People who make these things are not – as they’re often described – assfucks. They’re people who would sincerely like to make a living making things you people, apparently, want to consume. You’re stealing. Calling it a social commentary is psych 101 self-justification.
awsome, but I have a really lame phone :-(
I can’t wait until this comes out next month so I can pirate it.
What happens if you scan a bannana? or a box of cereal?
Something awesome I bet!
I think The Pirate Bay should release a phone ;)
90 bucks lmfao? thats all? geeezz
That’s pretty cool alright. But I can’t see it taking off, as it requires you to go into a video store and start scanning barcodes with your phone – far too suspicious! If you could take out a few steps (downloading which version you want) it’d be quicker but anyway, it’s very impressive! What’s with the freaky Silent Hill-type ambient music?
27 references to this post
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.