I’ve just discovered something neat: QR Codes. These are basically 2D bar codes which embed data, usually URLs. So, for example, this is the QR Code for JDHarper.com:
Most Japanese phones (and apparently Android phones) can decode these QR codes natively; they’re used all over the place in Japanese advertising. There are a number of free iPhone apps that decode QR codes. I use NeoReader. [1] There’s probably a reader that works with your phone.
So, what can we do with QR codes, other than respond to Japanese advertising? Let’s say you’re looking at a link you want to pass to your phone. You can use the QRLink Firefox Add On or this bookmarklet to generate a QR code. Then read it using your phone’s decoding program. Way faster than email.
Semapedia suggests making stickers that link physical objects to wikipedia entries.
And you can store any text in these, not just URL’s, up to 4,296 alphanumeric characters. One suggestion I’ve seen is encoding your contact info into a QR code and putting onto your business card, although I have my doubts about that idea.
I feel like there’s a lot of potential in these things, but I don’t quite know what they might be good for yet. Any ideas?
[1]. Although I’m not thrilled that NeoReader redirects the URL’s through their website, presumably to track your usage for advertising. There are other options which I haven’t explored yet.
The Devil Tesla
March 12, 2010 at 8:27 pm
Actually, I think that the business card thing is a really cool idea. The main benefit that I see to QR codes is that they make distributing data as cheap as printing one of them, and contact information is valuable data that fits on QR code that benefits from wide distribution.
The biggest problems that QR has right now is that not enough people know about it and now to use them. There isn’t any company really pushing them in America. But yea, there are a lot of uses for bar codes beyond the silly CueCat stuff we were doing a decade ago.