As Rolf Harris would ask, can you tell what it is yet?
Imagine a world where you want your students to look something up on the internet phon/portable devices that they all will have eventually. They point the camera at this bar code and, whoosh, straight to the web page. Apparently Nokia's popular N95 camera already has the software to read it built in. Look for Bar Code Reader on your phone.
Learn more about them at Mobile BarCodes. Educational uses are discussed at James Clay's Blog.