Copy of recent article in Mail and Express Review

Publication Date: March 2012

The first patent for a bar code product (US Patent #2,612,994) was issued to inventors Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver on October 7, 1952. The Woodland and Silver bar code was a sort of "bull's eye" symbol, made up of a series of concentric circles – like the rings in a tree.

A local food shop owner had made an inquiry to the Drexel Institute, where the two graduate students were working, asking about the possibility of research into a method of automatically reading product information during checkout. Bernard Silver joined together with fellow graduate student Norman Joseph Woodland to work on a solution. It is from this early work that today’s barcode technology was developed.

It wasn’t, however, until 1996 that the first commercial use of the barcode was implemented – although even at this early stage it was recognized that some form of standardization would be required if the concept was going to be deployed on a wider basis.

By 1970, the Universal Grocery Products Identification Code or UGPIC was written by a company called Logicon Inc. Plessey Communications in the UK produced the first industrial bar-code equipment in 1970 which used the UGPIC symbol set – this evolved into the traditional UPC symbol set we use today. In June of 1974, the first commercial UPC (Universal Product code) scanner was installed at a Marsh's supermarket in Troy, Ohio and the first product to have a bar code included was a packet of Wrigley's Gum.

From these early beginning the humble two-dimensional striped barcode has become ubiquitous around the world, although it has been impossible to find any statistics as to their global usage or the volume of items scanned. But just walk into any shop, anywhere in the world and every product will have one!

There has been many attempts to supersede the traditional striped barcode including RFID, Bokode, Microsoft HCCB (Colour Barcode)and probably many others. The QR code is the latest of these attempts and unlike these other attempts seems to be gaining traction around the world..

Unlike the more popular stripy bar codes, a QR Code stores data in both the vertical and horizontal directions and hence has more storage capacity per unit area. Denso Wave, the company that introduced QR Codes to the world in 1994, says that QR codes are readable from any direction and that data stored inside QR codes can be restored even if the corresponding image is partially damaged. There is difference between traditional ‘striped’ barcode and QR codes can see that in below image.

The QR code can store a surprising amount of data. If only numeric data is stored there can be up to 7089 characters or if text is included 4296 characters.

Who’s using QR Codes?

A recent study in the US revealed that 24 – 35 year old males mainly use QR codes. – 53% are between 18 and 34 and in the US over 14 million Americans scanned QR codes in the month of July 2011 alone. The reason for all this scanning – well 46% of people who scanned received discounts as a result.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi have both seen the potential and have actively embraces the QR code in their marketing campaigns.

The travel industry are also embracing the QR code and there are already tourist maps and travel guides published for many cities in the world and recently, London joined in the game by placing physically printed QR Codes on signs near tourist destinations.

Although encrypted QR codes are not very common, there are a few implementations. It is possible to encrypt QR codes using the DES algorithm (56 bits) for example Japanese immigration use encrypted QR codes when placing visas in passports.

The postal industry has also embraced the QR code and China, Spain and Croatia have all launched stamps with QR codes on them.

QR as art

One phenomenon of the Internet has been the continual pushing of the boundaries – whatever they area and the area of the QR code is no different. Although a seemingly simple printed artifact the QR code is quickly becoming an contestant for artistic license. A number of individuals and companies are ‘tinkering’ with the QR code image – adding images, logos and distorting the image itself. The high level of error correction means that the code still works which considering the amount of data that can be held in the QR code is amazing.

The second area where art and QR codes collide is where artists such as Scott Blake are using the QR code as a medium in larger images – almost seeing the QR code a s pixel.

As ‘art’ creeps into the QR code market it begs the question are these codes going to be the new collectable? As the number of letters and associated stamps declines will QR code images be the new philately? If so how could the postal operators use their capabilities to retain a share of this lucrative collectables market?

How could you use QR codes – what different ways could they enhance your marketing, operations or customer communications?

There is plenty of software on the market, much of it free, to let you read, create and even amend QR codes – so start the

experimentation!

When considering these questions there are many techniques and tools that could be used and my new book ‘100 Great Innovation Ideas’ published by Marshall Cavendish provides a springboard to the world of Innovation. The book outlines 100 different ways to think differently and hopefully will stimulate new ways of thinking about these and other questions. The book is available in all good book shops and on Amazon.

References:

http://qrarts.com/ - a website dedicated to using QR as a new art form.

www.oneextrapixel.com - creating portraits within the QR code

http://qrstuff.com - QR generator and source for other QR products (US)