Wikipedia has a good entry on Quick Response (QR) codes.
OK, your smart phone or iPad has the ability to scan QR codes? You can add me and this Blog to your Contact list by scanning the first image, and add some text information by scanning the second.
These QR codes were generated free at http://www.itmt.co/QR/
You are already seeing these QR codes appearing in magazines and billboards. I plan to put one on my business card. Anyone with a QR-code reader on their photo device can scan the code and go to a specified website, send an email to a specified address, and/or add name, phone, and address information to their Contact list.
3 comments:
It'll be interesting to see if this goes anywhere in the US. I think it was CVS pharmacies that were giving out free barcode readers about ten years ago. I picked up one for my computer, but no significant apps followed.
Sometimes it pays to be a bit behind the curve. France broke ground for the public use of a type of internet (Minitel). Minitel stations were given away free by France Telecom i.e., the government. It was the pride of France, but was ultimately buried by the broader capabilities of the WWW.
Good points Joel. When I worked for IBM I was in the military part where we were very up on the latest technology. However I was always surprised at how backward IBM's commercial offerings were from my high tech viewpoint.
Well, there was a "method to their madness":
1) IBM sold their commercial stuff to businesses, and, at the time when IBM was on top, "NO ONE EVER GOT FIRED FOR BUYING FROM IBM" so they could count on regular business sales with minimum worries from their competitors at the time. (Of course things are different now.)
2) At IBM Marketing School I learned that we had "deep pockets" and "long legs". If any competitor got significantly ahead of IBM in any important new tech area, IBM could always buy them out (or buy and promote their high tech competitor) and then use IBM's "long legs" to out-market them. That way, smaller companies had the expense and risk of developing new technologies and opening up the markets, and IBM would use their good name and connections to exploit the newly-opened markets when they proved to be significant.
3) IBM had a large staff of geeks at Yorktown research who were very much into all new tech areas, as well as a fantastically agggressive marketing organization that reported the status of the customer set and their needs and whatever high tech they had purchased that we did not have. Marketing and/or Research would sound the alert in time for IBM to dig into those pockets and put on those legs. They got into the personal computer market just in time and made it into a respectable business area for big companies to use. Then, the IBM-compatibles and Microsoft took advantage of the new market and aced IBM out of it.
Ira
PS: The reason I posted about QR codes was that my newest toy, an iPad 2 tablet, has the ability to scan QR codes and instantly go to websites or send email to the contacts specified in the code. So, I used a website (via my IBM-compatible Windows laptop) to create my QR codes to test the capabilities and initiate the Contacts feature on my iPad 2 with myself as the first contact. Sure enough, each item in the code was put into the Contact feature correctly (Name, location, email, phone, website). I have not yet gotten around to putting the code on my business card but will do so not so much to make it more convenient for others to put me into their contact list, but to make my card more distinctive.
Pure vanity.
Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” ... “I have seen everything that is done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.”
Yup. Vanity - That is me :^)
Joel (from the Book of Joel) responds:
"Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions." Ecclesiastes is too downbeat for Joel despite the fact that he's known as the prophet of doom.
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