I mentioned the awesomeness of QR codes a couple of posts ago. I’ve found a pretty good iPhone QR scanner called iRobin, and it’s free for the next couple of weeks. It doesn’t appear to be routing the URL’s through it’s own server like NeoReader was, and it can automatically follow links it finds, which is nice.
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?
