When I first started using the geocaching app on my smart phone, I tried a search of nearby caches when I happened to be visiting IKEA in Sydney. A cache called came up.
At the time I thought that I would have to scan the information to solve the puzzle. I thought to myself;”How cool is that!?”
That got me thinking…
Eventually I got to playing with my smart phone ( an iPhone 3GS, and I am writing from the wonderful walled garden of them Apples, but you can do all this on your Android )
I came across a program ( that the kids call ‘app’ ) called ‘RED LASER’ That made my screen look like this…
I found that I could point my phone’s camera at a barcode and it would give me information about that product.
After poking around in that app for a bit I found this screen…
So I came to realize that I, too could build a nifty QR code to share some information.
This could prove to be useful on a business card, a sticker or to hide a Geocache with.
I printed off a couple with co-ordinates and stuck them to some puzzle pieces and put the puzzle together and then tried to scan it. This did not work. I realized later that the RED LASER app, whilst good at producing the QR code, could not read one. Which is an oversight if you ask me. So I downloaded an app called, simply, SCAN.
That did work on my QR code, but I only discovered this after I scrapped my idea of a QR jigsaw puzzle, and moved on to something different.
Since that self inflicted lesson, I have done a bit more research and found out that a QR code is actually short for quick recognition code.
the anatomy of a QR code
And all the black squares serve a purpose.
Actually, the WHITE square around the code also serves a purpose. It is the margin that the camera needs to give the code readability.
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Anyway, it was an interesting learning curve that I thought may interest some of you.
It is also possibly the way of the future. I found this article of how in Korea they have billboards in the subways set out like the aisles of a supermarket, where you can place an online grocery order just by scanning in the qR codes whilst you wait for your train.
The future is here