I’ve seen the idea of QR Codes coming up a few times recently. There was a piece by Gina Trapani and some discussion around the issues with their use at SXSW.I thought it might be time to do some looking around.

QR (Quick Response) Codes have been around for about 15 years (Wikipedia). They are a black and white image that can be found on all sorts of things. When I thought about it I realised I had seen them on posters and packaging for quite some time. Apparently they are very popular in Japan – while the rest of us have been slow to catch on.

Like any barcode, you need a scanner to capture and decode the information. My Nokia E71 has a barcode scanner and I wondered why it didn’t work on ‘normal’ barcodes. It’s because it’s a QR Code Reader. There are lots of QR Code scanners out there! i-nigma make applications for lots of phones. Their Symbian Series 60 application is a lot faster than the one that came with my E71.

So what can you embed in a QR Code? Quite a bit of information!  Many companies simply embed a website address so that a consumer can use their mobile phone to scan the barcode and see extra product information immediately. Someone like me could add a QR Code to a business card. Some one who sees my card could scan the code, go to the website and see an up to date resume or contact details. The embedded data could contain competition information or treasure hunt clues.

Download a QR Code scanner for your phone and scan one of the codes on this page – better yet make your own!

Note: The two codes on this page were made with two different generators. I used http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ for the top one (which links to a page about my work) and I used http://www.mobile-barcodes.com/qr-code-generator/ for the second code (which is a message about my Twitter accounts).

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