Continental testing visual boarding passes on cell phones

Here’s an idea that’s long overdue: using your cell phone to display an airline boarding pass. The paper passes have had scannable barcodes for some time now and on my last flight I actually did ask if my phone could be scanned since I had an image of my boarding pass on it. No such luck as I was told the paper passes were required for security reasons.Continental wants to change that by scanning the barcodes right from your phone’s display; a process that’s currently in test. From the USA Today picture shown, it appears that the airline is using QR codes as opposed to the traditional UPC-type codes, but there aren’t any technical details to indicate if this is correct. Regardless of the method, this could save a bunch of time and paper. I lost count of how many times I’ve awakened in the middle of the night to print a boarding pass as soon as possible, which is normally 24 hours prior to the flight time. Having an electronic boarding pass for download or in e-mail could net me some more sleep! (via Gizmodo)