QR Codes (Quick Response) 2D BAR-CODE

QR Quick Response 2D BAR-CODE

What is a QR Code?

A QR Code is a spe­cific 2D matrix bar-code (a two-dimensional code), read­able by ded­i­cated QR bar-code read­ers and cam­era phones. The code con­sists of black mod­ules arranged in a square pat­tern on a white back­ground. The infor­ma­tion encoded can be text, URL or other data.

Most of us are very famil­iar with UPC prod­uct bar-codes where as they are highly reli­able they are also fixed to 12 num­bers and hence lim­ited to exact­ing standards.

Think of the QR 2 D bar-code as an abil­ity to take quick notes with your smart phone.

QR or Quick Response is the offi­cial term some unof­fi­cially refer to it as Quick Reader.   Orig­i­nally cre­ated by the Japan­ese Com­pany  Denso-Wave in 1994  (a Toy­ota sub­sidiary). Today the QR code is one of the most pop­u­lar types of two-dimensional bar-codes in Japan.  QR is the abbre­vi­a­tion for Quick Response, as the cre­ator intended the code to allow its con­tents to be decoded at high speed. With the abil­ity to  address both var­ied and much more data in the given area.

So why should you be inter­ested in QR bar-codes?

High speed dense mar­ket­ing. QR Code is expand­ing quickly into US mar­kets where as QR codes are now show­ing up every­where, includ­ing media (peri­od­i­cals, brochures, news­pa­pers), POP Dis­plays,  com­mer­cial track­ing appli­ca­tions and convenience-oriented appli­ca­tions aimed at mobile phone users (known as mobile tag­ging). QR codes can be used to dis­play text to the user, high­light time sen­si­tive spe­cials, add a vCard con­tact to the user’s device, open a URL  for­ward­ing to more infor­ma­tion or to com­pose an email or text mes­sage. Users can also gen­er­ate and print their own QR codes for oth­ers to scan and use by vis­it­ing one of sev­eral free QR code gen­er­at­ing sites.

So how do you read the QR Code?

1) First you need a cam­era equipped smart phone and the  QR software.

Many QR read­ers are free or very inex­pen­sive for the Apple iPhone just search in the App store for  “QR”.  Many Android, Nokia, and Black­berry phones come with QR code read­ers pre-installed. QR reader soft­ware is avail­able for most mobile plat­forms in the App store for your smart phone.

2) Next sim­ply turn on the QR App point and scan.  depend­ing on your QR reader appli­ca­tion  QR bar-code will trans­late and dis­play text, con­tact infor­ma­tion, Web­site or even a block of text.

3) Next con­nect to a wire­less net­work, or open a web page in the phone’s browser. This act of link­ing from phys­i­cal world objects is known as a hard link or phys­i­cal world hyperlinks.

A near future  real­ity could be in going to a mar­ket show­room,  scan­ning select QR codes of com­pa­nies and  items you have of inter­est in. Then  as you return from a long day and get back to your lap­top  or desk­top for­ward­ing or trans­fer­ring the days QR code infor­ma­tion to review cat­a­logs electronically.

We at Cat­a­log Hound fully intend to use this QR 2D technology!