Qr- Code Basics

A technology similar to NFC which is rapidly growing in popularity is Qr Codes. Like Near field communication, quite a few new things are possible due to it's ease of access on cell phones. Most of the time a free cell phone application can be downloaded that will allow you to photo graph a qr code which will open up some type of content such as a website or information about a product.

These codes are becoming more and more popular in marketing and advertising of products and companies as well as for use in the social media industry for websites such as facebook and twitter. A Qr Code is quite a bit like a standard bar code that can be found on the back of basically any product that is for sale but instead of being made up of lines that go up and down a qr code is actually a rectangular space filled with black and white squares that represent the information that the company wants the consumer to see. This allows a lot more unique information to be displayed in a much smaller space.

Invented by Mr. Denso Wave in the early 1990's, it was originally used during a scanning process in the automobile industry. This allowed the workers to find out how many vehicles were in stock and where they are much quicker by quickly walking past them with a specially made laser scanner. It quickly became popular and the design was improved until it became the qr code we know today.

NFC is now very popular in Japan and not nearly as much in the United States however if you look at the trend of qr codes which was originally huge in Japan and is now also very popular here, I don't think we have anything to worry about. In my opinion near-field communication will be just as prominent as qr codes are today in just a few short years.

These days qr codes are just about everywhere, on the front cover of magazines, in educational settings, and even on the front of products such as cereal boxes. While it is widely used in marketing and advertisements these days it is also still used for purposes like the one it was started in. Product tracking and making the warehouse life much easier.

Qr code basics links and resources:

• A cool website that allows you to generate your own qr codes that can be scanned by your cell phone

• This website has a qr code creator as well as plenty of cool qr code merchandise