In parts of Asia and Europe, marketers have been using bar-code technology to help sell things to people on their cell phones, reports the New York Times–but a test of the technology on a U.S. campus suggests it’s not ready for more widespread use. Using the technology, consumers can point a phone at something intriguing that bears a signature black-and-white square, then get information about a product or service or an offer to purchase it. In the United States, the spread of this technology has been slow, in part because cell phones here are not equipped with the necessary software. There have been a few small-scale tests, but judging from the experience of one under way at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, the technique is nowhere near ready for widespread use. A company called Mobile Discovery, based in Reston, Va., is conducting the test at Case in conjunction with the university’s engineering school, whose students are helping to manage it. Students and other people affiliated with the university can download software to their cell phones and then get campus bus arrival times, order magazine subscriptions, enter a sweepstakes sponsored by QVC, and get text alerts from USA Today, among other applications. But interest in the pilot project, which started Feb. 1 and will run at least through May 15, has been tepid, according to students on campus, in part because of the cell-phone fees associated with it…