Folks everywhere are getting serious about Christmas shopping, and part of that shopping is often finding the best price. Well, if you have an I-phone, an application created by some Missouri University of Science and Technology students could be a big help.

Ever wonder if you're getting the best price on the stuff on your Christmas shopping list? Now, you can know in seconds, if you're carrying an I-Phone.

"One of the very first projects we started was the I-Phone development," says Michael Orlando. He is a student at Missouri S & T in Rolla, and CEO of a company made up of about twenty students called Interdisciplinary Design Collaborative. The company is just over a year old, and one of their proudest accomplishments is an I-Phone App called "Barcodescan."

"There was a group on campus, and one of the students in that group that I was involved with had done some work with barcode recognition using cameras. And so, when the I-phone came out, it kinda clicked. Hey, that has a camera, you take it with you everywhere; it has an internet connection," says Orlando.

The company signed up and paid the fee to become an I-Phone App developer. "You have to meet Apple's guidelines on how it looks, how it works, making sure it doesn't crash the phone, there's no viruses in there," Orlando says.

The students went to work, and now the free version of their app has over a quarter of a million downloads. To use Barcodescan, it's simply a matter of typing in a product's barcode number or pointing the I-Phone's camera.
"Then it goes through the internet and brings back the prices and gives you the range from the low to the highest," says Paul Parham, a student who also worked on the app.

It also shows reviews for the product, plus records your current location with the I-phone's GPS. "I would say electronics- it would probably be the most useful. My friend scanned a TV and he saved a couple hundred dollars," says Parham.

Barcodescan pro, which offers more than the free version, is on sale right now for 99 cents for the next week or two. It's creators say there are other similar apps, but say theirs is more user friendly and has some options the other don't. They're also planning improvements in the coming months.

Learn more at http://www.barcodescanapp.com/