Researchers at Toshiba's Corporate Research and Development Center, in Japan said shoppers often have only a sales representative's word for whether a particular brand or model has a good reputation. But now Takahiron Kawamura and colleagues have developed the WOM, or Word-of-Mouth, Scouter to allow shoppers to get the latest reviews for a product while they are shopping.

The process involves taking a photo of the item's barcode with a cell phone camera. The Scouter then gathers the item's meta data via the internet, including information from blogs and Web sites that reviewed the product.

The researchers said their device uses natural language processing techniques to analyze what blogs and reviews are saying about the product. The Scouter then provides a straightforward positive or negative opinion on the product's reputation.

The scientists say the device could also be adapted for such purposes as choosing a movie, a restaurant or, potentially, whether to accept a specific job offer.

The system is reported in the International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies.