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Humour Technology

QR Code

Go On, Point Your Phone At It

See that? That’s a QR code. You find these things everywhere now; in papers and magazines, on business cards and posters. If you’ve been wondering what the hell’s going on, they’re a similar idea to barcodes. They can contain hidden messages, contact details, dirty limericks – best of all, links to websites.

Scan one with your phone’s camera, and its browser will open the page. (You’ll find a free QR reader for most recent phones here.) The one shown is for this very blog. Now real-world objects like printed pages, even buildings, can have clickable links.

But why stop there? I’m growing a vast privet hedge maze in the shape of this code. Soon you’ll be able to come here by clicking on satellite photographs.

6 replies on “QR Code”

I find QR codes a bit weird. Why not have an app that can simply recognize a certain default font in which advertisers will agree to publish their URLs? Humans and phones alike can recognize that!

But then where’s the surprise? 🙁

Actually I think that’s a great idea, and one which will happen soon. I even doubt if there’s any real need for a special font, the way OCR is now. So far though I haven’t heard of any app that can recognise plain text URLs and launch the browser.

Matthew…?

(This has given me an idea for a whole other post. To be continued!)

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