Color Data in Black & White
I saw that AT&T Mobility is now promoting QR Codes as the "wave of the future" and the "portal for all media" (or similar buzzword-weighted marketese). The really odd thing about this push to make QR Codes hip is that the whole system just isn't very hip. It's utilitarian.
Like most technology innovations, quick codes were a pragmatic solution to an obvious problem.
Systems like QR and Data Matrix were originally created in Oregon (even though Wikipedia's article doesn't mention this) because manufacturers were weary of paying people to re-position items on assembly line belts for scanning. All the merchandise had old-style 2-D bar codes, and the scanner only operated in one alignment. So, as my friend Patrick Cox would tell you, this Oregon company came up with a quick and dirty way to create a bar code that could rotate around in three dimensions, and could still be scanned. Invented in U.S., and then the technology went to Japan (just like Sudoko).
In the meantime, of course, other companies were working on newer technologies, like embeddable RFID tags, which at one point people thought could be attached to every piece of food we eat, and embedded into people for easy and secure purchasing and security. Unfortunately, there are some health concerns with RFID embedding — and that future hasn't happened yet. More unfortunately, even today, RFID tagging costs more than bar coding (even in tattoos).
Which brings us back to QR codes — they're useful because they convey a large amount of information with one quick snap of a photo. It's interesting to note that the QR system thus gives a machine a similar capability to the human retina — a complex system that converts perceptions of light and darkness are converted to electrical impulses in a split second. A similar type of conversion process happens in Braille, or for experienced users, in Morse code… conversion of compressed data into a larger set of richer data. These systems all expand compressed data (black & white — dots & dashes — 1s & 0s).
Basically, it's a data compression algorithm.
And now, according to the marketing experts at AT&T Mobility, it's THE way to "fit a brand into a morning routine"! Woot for the future!
