It's a QR code. If you're not familiar with them, they are like bar codes for the new millennium. The bar code was limited to a specific scanning tool and a laser reader. It was also mandated to a very specific size. QR codes however can be read with a smart phone or anything that can take a photo of the code and process it on the web. They are not size dependent and can be read at any size. Have an iphone? Download the NeoReader (it's free) and try it.
Since someone introduced them to me at the office recently, it's become my new obsession. I seem to find them everywhere. Like here in London:
They can be up to 177 characters of text (like this one), or links to websites. Generating them is free - like the first one which is a link to this blog. Honestly, I'm finding them everywhere. On furniture and the most suprising was on the back of a bottle of Chloraseptic that I bought for my wife's sore throat. Now, it was scaled to the same size as all the four point type on the back of the bottle, but it was there none the less.
1 comment:
They still have yet to really catch on, I think, but it'll happen any day now. Really all it would take is for smartphone cameras to be able to recognize them natively instead of having to install a 3rd party QR code scanner.
Fred | Barcode Wire
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