I thought the photo below was particularly poignant to me.
This is a photo of a billboard that sits above the main exit of the Shibuya JR station. The patch of rectangles in the middle of the billboard is a QR code — essentially, a 2-D barcode.
This is poignant for a few reasons. This is the first time I’ve seen a major advertisement installation like this where one of the most prominent features of the advert is a machine-readable only data format. This has the feel of one of those “Animatrix” motifs where machines have gained a first-class citizenship alongside humans — just a little bit eerie to see a piece of very expensive advertising real estate occupied by a data format that my wetware cannot natively process. The QR code on the billboard actually encodes a URL for the band’s website. In the US, this would have to be a text URL. But, in Japan, every mobile phone — at least the ones used by the sub-40 demographic (the dominant population of Shibuya) — has built into it a QR barcode image recognition program. Since every Japanese mobile phone has a camera built into it, and they all have QR barcode software in it, it’s entirely reasonable to put data that is exclusively machine-readable on expensive advertising real estate. I tried the QR code out on my Japanese cell phone and it worked wonderfully.
This leads to the second reason why this is poignant. While the Japanese system may have many flaws, the massive uniformity of the mobile phone feature set has as one of its benefits the ability to drive pervasive new standards like the QR code into just about everything — from QR codes embedded in vending machines for coupon distribution, to QR codes embedded on the wrapper of a MacDonald’s cheeseburger to give rapid access to a URL for nutrition facts.
QR code just doesn’t seem to have made in-roads into the US yet. Recently I attended the Maker Faire in Austin Texas. On the first day, I wore a t-shirt with a 1 sq ft QR code on the front of the shirt. Not a single person scanned it, like no recognition as to what it even was. Heck, the only person I had even ask about what it was a guy I met in the hotel elevator who was in town for a football game!
Maybe over time, we’ll see more recognition here in the states.
Sixerdoodle
http://www.JenRathbun.com/Electronics/
Check out http://insqribe.com
We’ve made creating QR Code campaigns really easy!
Let me know what you think :)
Danny
Yikes, my gut reaction (after “wow that is cool!”) was, dear lord, now Spyware and Virus type websites will place up barcodes or hi-jack the websites being scanned and bring back the “goodness” to the office when the hapless executive returns…..
We actually have a couple of those in Sweden (In a newspaper) though in a much lesser extent than in Japan. As for security, I found this site RFID virus which is about the potential for viruses that spread over RFID tags. (Since an RFID tag is a potential two way medium)
Hi Andrew,
It was great to meet you after the New Context Conference the other day. I was the one thinking about remote controlled picture frames for elderly relatives.
Just thought you might like to know that the picture of the QR-Code above – though small and a little pixelated – still resolves perfectly to the URL. There must be some options for cellphone integration with Chumby widgets there ….. hmmmmmm :)
Cheers,
-Rob
[…] Smartphone owners in Asia are more likely familiar with the technology being used, called Quick Response (QR) Codes. The squares are actually 2D barcodes containing URL information; many Asian companies are beginning to print QR codes on advertisements to direct smartphone users to product or company web sites. The tool is especially popular in Japan, where most phones ship with QR Code reading software pre-installed. […]
QRMe is a UK website focused on QR codes. News, articles, videos and a forum are available. You’ll also get your very own trackable QR code which allows you to see where and when your QR code was scanned on a google map.
http://www.qrme.co.uk/qrme-dynamic-qr-codes.html
Regards
Ian
Founding creator – QRMe
People are putting them on their clothing as well, see http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/magazine/16-11/st_cuecat . Even Ralph Lauren is playing along http://www.psfk.com/2008/08/polo-ralph-lauren-enters-the-world-of-qr-codes.html
— Sander
It’s funny you should spot this. I’ve recently started integrating these barcodes into my clients projects. It is proving to be very useful. The first thing that drew me to this is that it’s license free. I don’t have to purchase special fonts or anything to use this. There’s even a ruby gem that works great for this [ http://github.com/whomwah/rqrcode/tree/master ]. All in all the pros outweigh the cons heavily.
Did you see Microsoft’s new Tag service?
[…] (Image: www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=273) Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Mobile QR Codes and Library Uses…02.18.09I.D.K. About RL QR’sQR Code Marketing Campaigns Can Now Tie to Google Earth in Real-TimeAren’t You QRious? […]
[…] to direct smartphone users to product or company web sites. The tool is especially popular in Japan, where most phones ship with QR Code reading software […]
[…] would appear there are creative uses being thought of for further utilization of this technology each week, twitter […]
Maybe this is what US companies will start to do.
[…] becomes more prevalent in mobile phones. The pixelated images can be added to magazine and billboard ads, for example, and scanned by mobiles phones to pull up various media, such as a product videos […]
[…] becomes more prevalent in mobile phones. The pixelated images can be added to magazine and billboard ads, for example, and scanned by mobiles phones to pull up various media, such as a product videos […]
[…] becomes more prevalent in mobile phones. The pixelated images can be added to magazine and billboard ads, for example, and scanned by mobiles phones to pull up various media, such as a product videos […]
[…] to direct smartphone users to product or company web sites. The tool is especially popular in Japan, where most phones ship with QR Code reading software […]