The National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Library of Medicine (NLM) released a BETA version of a tool to help patients and healthcare providers identify medications via its physical properties (e.g., shape, color, imprint) and provide with FDA content consisting of links to medication information and labeling.

Although this tool is not really ready for full-time, clinical use - as evidenced by the disclaimer and the broken URLs - this has the potential to be a very helpful tool, free of subscription fees.

Lastly, I see projects like these as further evidence that the demand for informatics-trained clinicians will far exceed the supply in the marketplace.