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QR Codes - Internet to Cell Phone via Camera 103

Posted by Zonk from the want-to-be-able-to-buy-a-soda-with-my-cell dept.
An anonymous reader writes "From ITWorldCanada comes an article about a technology that might change the way people use their cell phones in North America: 'A Toronto-based software developer wants to bring Quick Response (QR) codes to Canada, and an industry analyst says this may appeal to companies offering products and services to youth.' McDonald's restaurants in Japan having been using the codes for over a year to present nutritional information on the cell phones of their customers. QR codes were originally developed by Tokyo-based Denso Wave Inc. and are common in Japan. When published in print form — on billboards, transit ads, vehicles or other media — consumers can then take pictures of the images and have them converted to links, phone numbers or other advertising messages."
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QR Codes - Internet to Cell Phone via Camera More

QR Codes - Internet to Cell Phone via Camera

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  • What a great idea!
    They should get Rowdy Roddy Piper [imdb.com] to be their spokesman here too!

  • elementary, my dear watson (Score:5, Funny)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Sunday December 02, 2007 @04:27AM (#21550541) Homepage
    McDonald's restaurants in Japan having been using the codes for over a year to present nutritional information on the cell phones of their customers.

    This article was almost believable, except for the fact that there's no such thing as "McDonald's nutritional information".

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Faylone ( 880739 )
      http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.index1.html [mcdonalds.com] While nothing on there is very healthy, with proper planning, you could fit a burger into a CAREFULLY PLANNED day of eating and still stay eating quite healthy, make it a regular habit and then things start to become a problem. That said, you're probably happier not knowing what's in it if you're not willing to stop eating it constantly.

      • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by Spokehedz ( 599285 )
        I have noticed that since the advent of the 'dollar menu' that the overall quality of the rest of McDonald's has dropped a LOT.

        Double Cheese Burgers ($1) used to be a decent burger for the price (1.45 when it was off the menu here back in 1999) but it seems that now they have started to use 'cheaper' meats with more fat in them... I mean, I have gotten burgers that were DRIPPING fat. And they were cold. How is that even possible? I had to eat it of course, because I was hungry. But I only go to McDonald's i
    • ...there's no such thing as "McDonald's nutritional information".

      Oh yeah, it's right up there with "Adverjournalism", an absolutely impossible concept, even more so than faster than light travel. This is linguistic terrorism, and should be outlawed. I'm all for repealing the first amendment if it continues.
    • Here you get them. On the back of that paper sheet they put on the tray so the tray has a higher chance to steer clear of the crap they dump into your burger. And if you don't mind turning over a greasy sheet of paper so you can at least find out what kind of crap you just pumped into your body, you can read it up.

    • Read the post more carefully (Score:5, Funny)

      by Kupfernigk ( 1190345 ) on Sunday December 02, 2007 @06:15AM (#21550871)
      It says "present nutritional information on the cell phones of their customers." They tell you how much nutritional value there is in eating the cell phone. As nylon and some other plastics contain amino acids, this is not quite as stupid as it sounds.
    • Well, if you *did* check it out, you are presented with a blank screen. McDonald's can always claim they just rolled it out of beta.

  • Why not just have bar codes on the ads? (Score:5, Funny)

    by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Sunday December 02, 2007 @04:43AM (#21550573)
    Then they can scan the barcode for the information. Heck, we can even give away free barcode scanners with magazines to make them do it- just make them cute looking. I'm thinking maybe a cat.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by DaveHowe ( 51510 )
      QR codes are barcodes, with some redundancy/error recovery built in so that you can get a partial or "bad" scan and still get the info; closest US equivalent would be the 2d barcodes with the little "target" round symbol in the middle that UPS put on their shipping labels.
      The advantage of QR is that you don't have to give everyone a free scanner - you just give them some free software for their existing mobile phone (which is a LOT cheaper)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AuMatar ( 183847 )
        The reason cue cat failed wasn't the lack of the scanner- they gave them away. It was the lack of a use for the service. Its still a solution searching for a problem, and will fail as completely.

        • Re:Why not just have bar codes on the ads? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by jamar0303 ( 896820 ) on Sunday December 02, 2007 @06:28AM (#21550915)
          Well, it seems to be an enormous success in Japan, and I imagine it will succeed just as much in Canada. You have to have widespread adoption- by cellphone manufacturers, but people who would have a use for QR codes, etc. Example- a Japanese arcade game I play will put up a QR code after the "game over" so that you can post your high score online via cellphone because it would be cost-prohibitive to put the individual machines online (for the arcade owner, mostly). Another use- business cards. That way it's incredibly easy to scan in all the contact info. Third use- small MIDI ringtones and graphics can be encoded in a QR code. All of these mean that QR codes have far more potential for success than the CueCat did.

        • Re:Why not just have bar codes on the ads? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by ArwynH ( 883499 ) on Sunday December 02, 2007 @07:40AM (#21551131)

          And that is where you are completely wrong. Sure the lack of service killed the cue cat, but that was because the lack of cue cats killed demand for the service.

          The possibilities of the QR code are not limited to advertising either. You can encode ~4k bytes into a QR code. That is enough for quite a few purposes. Here in Japan almost every mobile phone has a scanner and the QR codes are everywhere. I have seen them encode links to web-sites on posters, address book entries (incl. photo) on business cards and more recently, virtual tickets.

          So far, the virtual tickets are by far the coolest use I've seen. The QR code is sent to your phone via email or obtained from a web page. Then you display the QR code on your phone screen and the ticket inspector scans it. No more need to print out plane tickets, cinema tickets or any other form of Id really. I've even seen the system used with shoppers club cards.

          There are probably many more uses for this that haven't been thought of yet.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by kisielk ( 467327 )
            Well, you just hit upon the other benefit of QR codes. "Every mobile phone has a scanner". That's because to recognize a QR code, you can simply process an image taken with any camera. By that virtue, pretty much every camera-equipped is capable of reading QR codes already, they would just need the appropriate software. This should be possible with barcodes too, but of course QR codes contain far more information as well as a handy alignment block to make image registration easier.
    • Ha! I'm in the process of moving, and buried in one of my boxes of archived computer schtuff was my cuecat. I had forgotten that I even had one :)

      Wish I could trade it in for a smart card or barcode reader/writer. I could definitely have more fun with that equipment.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zadaz ( 950521 )
      Most people (who haven't owned a Japanese phone in Japan) don't really get why QR codes are great.

      Every single Japanese phone made in the last 5 years has this. Which means virtually every Japanese person has a read on them at all times. Sometimes two.

      And QR codes are everywhere. Sure, advertising, magazines and whatnot, but there are a lot of other uses. If you could go around and tag anything with a URL or 1-2 K of text, what would you use it for?

      You can embed contact information in them, so having on

  • Oooh, can I point out the flaw in the plan? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Sunday December 02, 2007 @04:45AM (#21550581) Journal

    Yes this exists in Japan. QR Codes are an "open" patent, the company that owns the patent has published the details so that anyone can implement it and doesn't enforce its patent except for the name.

    This means it is IMPLEMENTED on a LOT of phones.

    So what does this western company do? Implement it on Windows Mobile 5 or 6.

    Eheh, why not implement it on the iPhone and go for an even more limited audience? (Sorry fanboys, but even with its massive success the iPhone is still only a tiny part of the market, although it is possible that with just 1 phone Apple will get a share that reaches while digits)

    Hint, MS ain't exactly owning the market for mobile phones, especially those owned by youths. What advertiser is going to include a bloody ugly area in their carefully designed ad that can't be used by 95% of phones. (Getting real market share data from MS in this area is next to impossible, they are very reluctant to release hard figures)

    If this canadian company had any smarts they would at least get it to run on Symbian (the majority OS) and preferably do it so that it simply runs on anything that has a camera. That is what the Japanese did.

    Without this, this will just be another, it worked in Japan and failed in the west tech stories. Remember i-mode anyone?

    I would also try to launch this in europe where carriers are slightly less restrictive about third party software on "their" phones.

    • http://mobilecodes.nokia.com/scan.htm [nokia.com]

      "Point and shoot your camera phone at a mobile code to connect directly to a website, view a message or get a phone number ready for dialing." --from the site.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by mutende ( 13564 )

        http://mobilecodes.nokia.com/scan.htm

        There are several readers available, not only covering Nokia and Symbian phones:

        There are also several other 2D "bar" codes in use besides QR-code: quickMark, trillCode, mCode, shotCode, semaCode, beeTagg, ... You name it!

      • I'm thinking that unique transaction or decryption info might be displayed on a POS (or other) screen, and be captured by the consumer for who-knows-what purpose. Solution looking for a undefined problem. The fact that it isn't human-readable might be an advantage, like the system that my local blood bank once used for donors' anonymous responses. ...Lorenzo

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MrNonchalant ( 767683 )
      Somebody needs to make this a MMS-accessible web app. That would make it completely cross-platform and instantly available on all mobile phones. You just snap the picture, send it off to a mail address or short code, and it send back the decoded text. If you want, you could create an account, verify your phone number, and then access anything you send later on the web.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Mr2001 ( 90979 )
        Who wants to pay 10-25 cents for MMS just to decode an advertisement?
        • People who have messaging plans, which is not an insignificant number.

          Also, I now use texts to add events to my Google Calendar that I see on posters around campus. Right now I have to stand in front of the poster and type all the event details in. I'm still paying the $0.30, but without the convenience.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mykdavies ( 1369 )

      Yes this exists in Japan. QR Codes are an "open" patent, the company that owns the patent has published the details so that anyone can implement it and doesn't enforce its patent except for the name.

      Why is a patent-encumbered solution preferred to the public-domain, ISO-standard Data Matrix [wikipedia.org] format? Isn't this marketing triumphing over common sense?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by xaxa ( 988988 )
        The wiki page you linked says there's currently ongoing patent litigation for the Data Matrix. QR codes are also an ISO standard.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dwater ( 72834 )
        In my experience, data matrix just plain doesn't work as well as QR-code. With the latter, I can just point my phone's camera in the general direction of the QR-code and it'll pick it up, but data matrix takes much more effort. Of course, that could be the reader's fault, but there you go.

        QR-code here : http://emz.yi.org/emdigo/sis/Cinema3D.html [yi.org]

    • If this canadian company had any smarts they would at least get it to run on Symbian (the majority OS) and preferably do it so that it simply runs on anything that has a camera. That is what the Japanese did.

      You must be a European, right? Symbian is far from the majority OS in North America, and it's a PITA to develop for. Bash WinMob all you want, (And this is /. so I'm sure they will) but MS at least provides decent development tools, and an environment where multi-threading/multi-tasking isn't mindbogglingly difficult.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dwater ( 72834 )

        You must be a European, right? Symbian is far from the majority OS in North America,

        This is becoming more and more irrelevant. Selling globally is becoming more and more easy. I'm not sure why anyone would want to restrict themselves to any particular market when they don't have to.

        However, as someone who develops for Symbian (S60 actually), I can say categorically this isn't :

        and it's a PITA to develop for. Bash WinMob all you want, (And this is /. so I'm sure they will) but MS at least provides decent development tools, and an environment where multi-threading/multi-tasking isn't mindbogglingly difficult.

        ...though I've never done MS Windows development, so I can't make the same comparison. On the other hand, to develop for S60, it is possible to use Microsoft tools (at least it used to be), not that I do (prefer co

    • If you want that to be really ubiquitous, use Java instead. Here in Spain, and the same goes for the rest of Europe, every single cellular phone not older than 3 years has a J2ME JVM inside.

      Symbian is getting more and more popular, but it is still reserved to high-end models.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dwater ( 72834 )
        It's true, but S60 is moving downwards in the market place (6120c is quite cheap, and still pretty powerful), and Java has it's own set of problems...
    • QR Codes are an "open" patent, the company that owns the patent has published the details so that anyone can implement it and doesn't enforce its patent except for the name.

      Well yeah, sorta. QR Code is an open patent, so there's no fee for usage, but it's also an ISO standard. This means if you want to get the spec, it will cost about $200 for ISO to e-mail you the appropriate 1.2 meg PDF. There are a couple of open-source QR Code libraries out there, but they're a tad buggy and don't support all of t

    • If this canadian company had any smarts they would at least get it to run on Symbian (the majority OS) and preferably do it so that it simply runs on anything that has a camera.

      It already does run on Symbian. I can scan any random QR code with my Nokia N93 and it will decode it and then let me open the web page, call the number, or do whatever the code points to.

  • "wants to"? (Score:5, Informative)

    by m2943 ( 1140797 ) on Sunday December 02, 2007 @04:47AM (#21550587)
    My cell phone shipped with a QR barcode reader application. Some magazines and newspapers have started printing them. There is an open source community at http://semacode.org/ [semacode.org]

    This stuff is already being used. For the time being, it's more of a novelty, though: typing in a phone number or URL is still faster and more reliable.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by NorQue ( 1000887 )

      typing in a phone number or URL is still faster and more reliable.

      That's what I was curious about when I entered this article's comments section. Thanks for answering. ;-)

    • Re:"wants to"? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Asmodai ( 13932 ) on Sunday December 02, 2007 @04:59AM (#21550627) Homepage
      That's merely due to market penetration.

      In Japan these things are printed all over the place. Posters in/at subways, papers at restaurants, magazines, et cetera.
      Then it makes a lot of sense of being able to use your mobile phone to snap the QR and access whatever site it references.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mooglez ( 795643 )
      So that's what those weird pictures are. I have been wondering for awhile what exactly they are as a pretty large portion of housing sales ad's now days seem to have those. (in Finland).

    • Re:"wants to"? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by phoebe ( 196531 ) on Sunday December 02, 2007 @07:39AM (#21551129)

      There is an open source community at http://semacode.org/ [semacode.org]

      That's neither open source or a community, its a software development kit that is cost-free, with restrictions, for non-commercial use.

      What is more interesting is ZXing (Zebra Crossing) [google.com] a free open-source J2ME development kit from Google that is part of the Android [slashdot.org] platform.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by surfi ( 1196953 )
      it's not so new, there are many barcode reader apps:

      kaywa reader [kaywa.com] that has also a web page to generate barcodes [kaywa.com] and supports many mobile phones [kaywa.com]. activeprint glass [activeprint.org] is another one, quickmark [quickmark.com.tw] another, or the already mentioned semacode [semacode.org].

      though: typing in a phone number or URL is still faster and more reliable.

      oh yes, i love to type URL's like http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/02/0644236 [slashdot.org] on my phone... :)

      BTW you can not only encode phone numbers, URL's or text, you can also encode vCard's [wikipedia.org] that can be imported by scanning the barcode. it's even beeing used to enc

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dwater ( 72834 )
      (IMO) that is simply not true.

      Firing up the Kaywa reader is really quick, especially if you put it on the active standby screen, and then it's a single click to get the code on the phone. That's quicker and easier than typing a phone number, and most things are more difficult than a simple phone number too - urls are at least a pain to enter, and sometimes they're long too. If you want to install an application, then it's much more convenient.
    • I recall that QR codes were used as part of the 28 Weeks Later advertising campaign, in the UK at least. Huge ones hanging on the sides of buildings, to be exact.
  • Finally someone is seeing the usefulness of this outside of Japan.

    Man, I've been wanting to get more features from Japan and Korea. Finally now that Japan and Korea are adopting 3G GSM I don't have to rent a phone there and can just roam with my provider. But then you would still miss out on some features, this will finally bring other mobile phone makes in line.

    Now to get a phone with a Japanese IME, English and support for my own language. I seriously wish that kind of software was more modular, might be

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xaxa ( 988988 )
      There's a picture of one in the UK here, it's big! http://www.giagia.co.uk/?p=202 [giagia.co.uk]
      But I've only seen about three ever, most people probably don't know what they are. They're very useful though, I expect they'll become more popular pretty quickly.
  • This means my cell phone in 2009 will finally be able to read those QR graphics on Japanese web pages written in 2004!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Slorv ( 841945 )
      >This means my cell phone in 2009 will finally be able to read those QR graphics on
      >Japanese web pages written in 2004!

      [rant]
      Yes but that probably only because you haven't botherd to DL the QR-reader to your phone.
      Try www.quickmark.com.tw [quickmark.com.tw] or reader.kaywa.com [kaywa.com] as starters.
      [/rant]

      More importantly; now that we westerns hopefully will caught up using 2D-barcodes, about five years late, we can start to PUBLISH and USE codes in ads, displays etc. Remember that Denso with their QR-code are only one of several [google.se]

    • QR codes have plenty more uses besides advertising. For example the Japanese use them on business cards as a way of sharing their contact details and home page URL without anybody having to type anything in (so there's no chance of getting someone's details wrong because of a typing error).

      Think of them as a sort of interface between the printed page and cyberspace.

  • Already on handsets - needs to be in "meatspace" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tryfen ( 216209 ) on Sunday December 02, 2007 @05:06AM (#21550661) Homepage
    Most Nokia devices in Europe already come with a bar code reader. The N95 comes with a reasonable one, but there are plenty of 3rd party apps, especially for Symbian devices.

    I favour Quickmark from http://www.quickmark.com.tw/ [quickmark.com.tw], although i-nigma from http://i-nigma.mobi/ [i-nigma.mobi] is fairly good.

    Here's a good generator of QR codes, available in PHP or Perl
    http://www.swetake.com/qr/index-e.html [swetake.com]

    QR codes are great for pushing complex information into your phone, forget scanning in a business card - just snap the QR code and have a vcard on your device instantly.

    With Google pushing them on print ads, everyone and his mother having a camera phone, phones with good mobile browsers, I think the time is right for these to take off in a big way.
  • Why would I want to get "more information" (read: more advertising) than I already get? I mean, yes, there are maybe quite sensible applications to this, but I doubt we'll see many of them. Instead we'll see a lot of ways to cram ad crap onto our cells.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jilles ( 20976 )
      QR codes are not just about advertising. They're just a quick way to get small bits of information into your phone. There's lots of use cases aside from advertising. For example, you could print one on your businesscard or display one on a website. A QR code on a business card could contain a url to a vcard (or the vcard itself). So basically to add someone to your contacts, just point the phone to the business card and snap. Same with any url.

      The killer use case is not having to type in stuff on your phone
    • As an expat living in Japan, I have experience with these phones and have actually seen some good uses, and rarely is it more advertising. Here's one example:

      You picked up a card, see an advertisement, or something else for a restaurant that sounds pretty interesting and it has one of these square bar codes on it. You take a photo of it, and it takes you to a mobile enhanced site with a menu, prices, daily specials, and sometimes even coupons. Seems like a pretty good deal to me if you're out and about a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xaxa ( 988988 )
      Maybe if you're interested in whatever's being advertised.

      Occasionally there's an advert on public transport, a poster in the street, on a card someone hands to me in the street, etc etc, and I'm actually interested in it! Usually, I forget about it though -- if I could just snap a photo I'd remember.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dwater ( 72834 )

      I mean, yes, there are maybe quite sensible applications to this, but I doubt we'll see many of them.

      Here you go then. Use this one to install my freeware app on your S60 phone with just a click or two :

      http://emz.yi.org/emdigo/sis/C3D-auto.png [yi.org]

      Here are some examples of what it does :

      http://emz.yi.org/emdigo/models/emzlist.html [yi.org]

      Sensible enough for ya'?

  • QR is great! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dancingmad ( 128588 ) on Sunday December 02, 2007 @05:15AM (#21550679)
    I feel like every time I post to Slashdot in the last few months, it's almost been exclusively about my cell phone (I live in Japan).

    I bought my phone this summer and the QR is awesome. My au phone bill comes with QRs to the site and this month's free downloads. I just went shopping at the Village Vanguard (like a cooler Japanese Spencer's) and the bag I got for the stuff I bought had three QRs, for directions, info on the store, and other things. I've even used QR on PC websites to access mobile versions of sites.

    It's really, really useful, but I think it needs a semi-decent camera on one's phone. I'd love for it to become popular in America, but American phones would have to start supporting it and then others will. While the three major Japanese phone companies are follow each other, getting American cell phone companies to go in one direction is like herding cats. I seriously doubt it'll take off in America.

    Don't get me started on the Japanese OCR program, which can take pictures of kanji and passes it on to the Japanese / English dictionary - it's so awesome.
  • You just can't keep a good cat down. Or even a mediocre one [wikipedia.org].

    Cheers,
    Ian
    • Wow, I didn't think anyone else would've thought of the cuecat this quickly after reading the article. Surprised there aren't any "Eye of Judgement" posts yet, though...

  • Big in Japan (Score:3, Funny)

    by LostInJapan ( 1197211 ) on Sunday December 02, 2007 @05:41AM (#21550749)
    For proof of just how big QR codes are in Japan, have a look at this. http://arity.blogspot.com/2007/12/information-density.html [blogspot.com]
  • Also see Semacode [semacode.org] for a similar idea.
  • QR codes are being used to affix "What's This?" tags
    to objects in Real Life, so you can aim your cellphone
    at something and get directed to its Wikipedia article.
    See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semapedia>.
  • A QR code reader app comes with the Dopod release of WM6 for the HTC Tytn (Hermes) phone - and, no doubt, other WM6 ROM packs originating from Japan. These ROMs have been widely leaked for the HTC phones. A good starting point for more info is here: http://www.xda-developers.com/ [xda-developers.com]

    I have played with the QR code reader on my phone and while I like the idea, I find that getting the camera aligned 'just right' to get an image shot that decodes propely is a real pain. I hope that it's perhaps the optics of the ph

  • tattoo virus anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by garlicbready ( 846542 ) on Sunday December 02, 2007 @06:27AM (#21550909)
    This reminds me of some of the logos I saw in the "ghost in the shell" series
    (hmmm I wonder if they actually are QR codes)

    would it be possible to get a working tattoo of one of these?
    a fun way to stop anyone taking your picture, a tattoo virus on your forehead that places an image where your face would be :)

  • So really too late (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AdamInParadise ( 257888 ) on Sunday December 02, 2007 @07:16AM (#21551049) Homepage
    QR codes is a well-known technology that worked very well in Japan. However, the rest of the world will probably never hear about them since another technology is about to place its place: RFID tags and NFC phones. NFC is a much better technology since you do have to position the camera just above the tag to read it. Also, NFC phones and RFID tags communicate with a bidirectionnal connection while QR codes are unidirectional only. There is no doubt that NFC phones are going to replace tickets and credit cards in many cases (but not all of course).

    So it's really too late to try to bring this kind of technology in the Americas or in Europe. Even in Asia QR codes are only used in Japan.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Riktov ( 632 )
      QR won't be supplanted by RFID and NFC because it can also be used in a broadcast content, which RFID and "near" (contactless) communication can't. QRs can be put placed in a TV commercial, or on a large billboard (imagine a video screen at a rock concert with a QR on it) which can reach hundreds of people simultaneously at any distance as long as it can be photographed. I could create and print a QR on a flyer and distribute a thousand copies but I think it'll be a long time before I can crank out a thousa

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zadaz ( 950521 )
      Except you can print QR codes with any printer and on any surface. You can take photos of them and exchange them. You can display them on any device that can display an image.

      And they cost absolutely nothing to make, can be generated dynamically with just a tiny bit of script.

      It requires no special reader, just a small bit of image processing software, of which there are free and open implementations.

      RFID has none of these advantages, nor will it.

      The reason QR codes are popular in Japan is because it's op
  • I can certainly testify to the popularity of these codes. I'm in a hotel in Shibuya just now (for the pilgrimage to Akihabara) and there are QR codes on posters in the elevator here.
  • Why don't they just use Kanji, seeing that all Japanese children already know it? Pictographs generally has one symbol per word so there must be a symbol for everything already.
  • I read a story [mcgilldaily.com] about this a month ago in my student newspaper. Good to know Slashdot is still setting the bar high for getting breaking news. Still, interesting topic.

  • Semacode, QRCode, whatever - I just want one that has readily available legally-free generation and decoding libraries available that I can use on my Linux box (in addition to J2ME applications)

    It doesn't have to be all commercial advertisements, after all. I think this kind of thing would have great potential as a modern equivalent of the old hobo codes [slackaction.com]. Sure, it's also abuseable, but I think I'd rather have the "Skateboarding is not a crime!" stickers as innocuous barcodes anyway. Same goes for commer

  • Does anyone else remember the code puzzle in Impossible Mission (old C64 game)?

    The colorised QR code on Wikipedia looks a lot like the codes from IM.

    Coincidence or poor memory on my part - you choose!

  • Current phone hardware in Canada won't be able to scan most Japanese-style QR codes, because they lack a macro-focus lens. Examine any phone from Japan and you'll find either a hardware or software "tulip icon" switch for macro-focus.

    With QR codes, you trade-off data size vs. physical size vs. the resolving ability of the phone's camera. Someone mentioned having one on a business card. A QR code containing the contents of the business card (name, position, email, phone, address, URL, etc.) would have to

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dwater ( 72834 )
      The kaywa reader reads this :

      http://emz.yi.org/emdigo/sis/C3D-auto.png [yi.org]

      which, on my monitor, is about 2"x2", from about 7" away. It also has a macro mode, but I've not needed it yet.

      • My point exactly -- the image you posted is 11 times bigger than, say, the one on yahoo.co.jp [yahoo.co.jp] (scroll down for it), and it contains less data (shorter URL). And a 2-inch square is quite a big chunk of a business card or brochure, so my point remains that some of the earlier comments in this thread about putting 7K of data on a reasonably small QR code are rather overly "optimistic" unless the macro focus issue is taken into account.

        Interesting that your device has macro focus. I wonder what percentage o

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dwater ( 72834 )
          Yes, I can't get that one in on my 3250 using Kaywa. If I click through, there's another which is slightly larger (1.5x?), which instantly works.

          Actually, I wonder if my camera does have a macro mode. Having looked a big more closely, I am doubting it. It is simply a menu option and is only in the Kaywa reader, and there's also an 'autofocus' mode, and I'm certain my phone doesn't have that.

          So, yes, I take your point; there are limits to the size. On that topic, I notice a 2d bar code on a disk drive the ot
  • I use a QR code to allow people to conveniently install my software on their phone. Say a user is browsing on their desktop computer and comes across a review for my software. The user decides they want to try it out but the prospect of typing a url into the phone puts them off. They then notice the QR Code so they take out their Nokia N95, launch the preinstalled reader and scan it directly into the phone, which then automatically launches the web browser to download and install the application. Ok, it's m
  • As the article said, they are targetting teens and early 20s - guess us old geezers won't have much content for us. Oh well. Welcome to the new society - heck what was the name of that book where people are killed at age 30?

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