Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works and I love all things reruns. That's right,
Speaker 1: it's time for another classic episode of tech Stuff. This
Speaker 1: episode originally aired on May two thousand and eleven when
Speaker 1: I was a young and Callo lad and Chris Palette
Speaker 1: and I decided we would tackle the topic of q
Speaker 1: R codes. What are they, how do they work, why
Speaker 1: are they important? And we find out and so will
Speaker 1: you in this classic episode enjoy. So today we actually
Speaker 1: are going to talk about things that are in fact square.
Speaker 1: Uh in a way, they're a little square too in
Speaker 1: the slang sense, because we're just talking about you know,
Speaker 1: what's there in black and white encoded information in the
Speaker 1: form of a QR code q R meaning quick response. Yes. Um,
Speaker 1: I guess we should probably give a little background, kind
Speaker 1: of do a little backtracking before we actually talk about
Speaker 1: QR codes and maybe talk about barcodes YEP, that's that's true. Um. Also,
Speaker 1: we've had several people mentioned this over the course of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, and it's sort of I think, come up
Speaker 1: for Jonathan and me both lately in real life sort
Speaker 1: of a oh yeah, look at that. They're they're sort
Speaker 1: of showing up everywhere. So we decided to go ahead
Speaker 1: and tackle it in bar codes. Um, if you've just
Speaker 1: finished our episodes on IBM, IBM was actually where the
Speaker 1: traditional uh you know, vertical series of vertical line barcodes
Speaker 1: first made their appearance. Yeah, and and the concept is
Speaker 1: is deceptively simple. It's the idea that you you create
Speaker 1: this series of lines and then you have a scanner.
Speaker 1: The skinner uses light to to bounce off of that
Speaker 1: series of lines, and technically it's just bouncing off the
Speaker 1: white spaces in between the lines, and the the width
Speaker 1: between the lines determines what information is encoded there. And
Speaker 1: so by standardizing this information, you can make this series
Speaker 1: of lines and you can create a a digital code there,
Speaker 1: you scan it and it it converts that physical format
Speaker 1: into a digital uh digital information. Now, with barcodes, that
Speaker 1: information is somewhat limited to around twenty characters or so,
Speaker 1: and that's a problem if you want to store more
Speaker 1: information than just twenty characters. It's great if you want
Speaker 1: to do things like create an inventory, so lots of
Speaker 1: lots of retailers have used these barcodes to create inventories. Yes.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's known as the UPC or universal product code. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that allows you to establish, all, right, everything that
Speaker 1: bears this barcode is this product, and then you can
Speaker 1: further go on to define everything that is this product,
Speaker 1: is this price and this This was a huge boon
Speaker 1: for retailers when people would purchase lots of goods. You
Speaker 1: have a scanner set up. The scanner is practically instantaneous, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it just takes the speed of light, the
Speaker 1: speed that the light takes to go from the scanner
Speaker 1: to hit the code and bounce back to the the
Speaker 1: photo sensors that are part of the scanner. That's you know,
Speaker 1: it just takes an instant which is why you know
Speaker 1: it seems crazy to us. All we have to do
Speaker 1: is hold up this little series of bars up to
Speaker 1: a screen and then almost it seems like it's instantaneous. Beep,
Speaker 1: there goes the price. And of course unless there's some
Speaker 1: problem with the barcode, in which case you scan, you scan,
Speaker 1: you scan, you rub it against something, you scan it again.
Speaker 1: Then eventually you you type in physically the the series
Speaker 1: of numbers underneath the barcode UH two into the computer,
Speaker 1: so you can register your purchase those series of numbers.
Speaker 1: That's actually what is encoded in that barcode. There's not
Speaker 1: There have been conspiracy theories about things that have been
Speaker 1: encoded in barcodes, but really barcodes just cannot hold the
Speaker 1: sort of information, nor is there any real way of
Speaker 1: of establishing that that product belongs to you the person,
Speaker 1: unless you're you've also got like a frequent buyers card
Speaker 1: type thing, right right, Yeah, it's it's it's useful um
Speaker 1: for inventory keeping it as you pointed out, that's that's
Speaker 1: why it was created. Um. The thing is, you know,
Speaker 1: if you have a store. Um. And this is something
Speaker 1: that we've mentioned before and other people mentioned before about
Speaker 1: the difference in internet retailers and physical what they call
Speaker 1: brick and mortar stores. There are only so many items
Speaker 1: that you can hold in most brick and mortar stores,
Speaker 1: even the superstores. I would say, you're not going to
Speaker 1: exhaust um. I mean, it would be hard to hold
Speaker 1: a variety of of stuff in a brick and mortar
Speaker 1: store that would exhaust the number of UPC codes that
Speaker 1: you might used. Yes, that was redundant UPC code. You're
Speaker 1: talking about twenty digit number. I mean that's yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's a lot of enough, that's a lot of digits.
Speaker 1: So but then, but then there are times when you
Speaker 1: would like to have a way to store more information. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it might be that you want to be able to create,
Speaker 1: um uh, something that can allow you to to categorize
Speaker 1: and subcategorize and sub subcategorized product or a piece. Um
Speaker 1: let's say that you are a car manufacturing plant. I
Speaker 1: am a car manufacturing plant, and you have very many
Speaker 1: pieces that you have to keep track of for an
Speaker 1: individual car, and you make several different models of cars.
Speaker 1: So therefore you have a plethora, if you will, a
Speaker 1: plethora of car parts. Do you know what a plethora means? Um? So, yeah,
Speaker 1: You've got all these different parts and pieces and they
Speaker 1: all fit in different ways, and you need to be
Speaker 1: able to encode that information so you make it very
Speaker 1: uh efficient. Well, the barcode may not give you the
Speaker 1: flexibility you need because we call the barcode a one
Speaker 1: D code, meaning that the direction is encoded or the
Speaker 1: information is encoded in one direction. All right, so that
Speaker 1: one direction would be the fact, you know, that these
Speaker 1: little gaps between the bars that's where the info is encoded.
Speaker 1: You would want to create a different encoding device, something
Speaker 1: that perhaps is a two D code, and two D
Speaker 1: means that you can the information is encoded both horizontally
Speaker 1: and vertically. So now you've got a much larger playing
Speaker 1: ground where you can create um far more detailed information
Speaker 1: encoding than you could with a barcode. That was the
Speaker 1: idea of the come up that that Toyota came up with.
Speaker 1: UM actually a Toyota subsidiary called Dense so wave back
Speaker 1: in they came up with this concept of a q
Speaker 1: R code, which was a type of two D code.
Speaker 1: Now we should also stress QR code is not the
Speaker 1: only kind of two D code. There are others as well.
Speaker 1: Ups uses a two D code I believe UM on
Speaker 1: their packaging, but it's not a QR code. It's similar
Speaker 1: to it UM it's the MAXI code that's the one
Speaker 1: they use UM. So, but the concept is is very
Speaker 1: much the same. It's the idea that you have this
Speaker 1: and you've probably seen these. It's the that that box
Speaker 1: with all the little black dots in it. Yes, it
Speaker 1: looks like there's usually three boxes that are, Well, there's
Speaker 1: always three buckses. There's three buckses there. They have a
Speaker 1: little border around them at at the top right, top left,
Speaker 1: and bottom left corners. And then if you look carefully,
Speaker 1: you might see that there's a tinier little dot. Uh
Speaker 1: that's a little bit set in from the bottom right
Speaker 1: corner that also has a little border around it. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a QR code and them the information that can
Speaker 1: be stored in theo QR code far outstrips that of
Speaker 1: a bar code. Yes, Now some people have said that
Speaker 1: they are read codes. They're not because you know, really
Speaker 1: they're square and they're flat, so they're not. When they
Speaker 1: say too D, they're they're not talking about dimensions. They
Speaker 1: are two D. But there but they but remember what
Speaker 1: Jonathan was just saying, as directions, and yes, it because
Speaker 1: the different directions. I think some people sort of started
Speaker 1: calling them that. But that's a that's a sort of
Speaker 1: a slang term and it's not really uh technically correct
Speaker 1: when referring to it. But I have heard them called
Speaker 1: that um And yes, it does add some some serious
Speaker 1: dimension to it. Um. Now, uh, you know, there is,
Speaker 1: as Jonathan said, some limitation, uh to the amount of
Speaker 1: information even at the size it is. But QR codes
Speaker 1: of have uh sort of moved out into the public eye,
Speaker 1: not just for use at uh you know, a dens
Speaker 1: O wave in Toyota. UM. They've actually sort of started
Speaker 1: to become a lot more popular here in the United States,
Speaker 1: I would say probably over the last eighteen months or so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in Japan they've been popular for a while. But the
Speaker 1: reason why they've been popular longer in Japan than in
Speaker 1: the United States is that in Japan, smartphone adoption UH
Speaker 1: started much earlier in Japan than in the United States.
Speaker 1: Chris and I will talk a little more about QR codes,
Speaker 1: probably make some puns, maybe references to early twenty ten
Speaker 1: pop culture. You'll have to find out in just a second.
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor.
Speaker 1: And here's the neat thing about these QR codes. If
Speaker 1: you have a phone that has a camera in it
Speaker 1: and it's capable of running apps, then you can create
Speaker 1: an app that can read QR codes. And because smartphones
Speaker 1: also have web connectivity ability as well as other abilities,
Speaker 1: you can design a QR code so that you know
Speaker 1: you you create a scanner that uses your phones camera
Speaker 1: to to capture the image of the QR code. It
Speaker 1: analyzes the QR code and then translates that into whatever
Speaker 1: the QR code is is encoded to do. So it
Speaker 1: might be a website. So let's say that you create, um,
Speaker 1: an advertisement for some sort of product and you, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you have a QR code right there, and
Speaker 1: you use your smartphone to capture that information and then
Speaker 1: it takes you to the website for that product, or
Speaker 1: perhaps it takes you to a video showing that product
Speaker 1: being used by someone. So you know, you might look
Speaker 1: at a probably to say, why would I ever want that?
Speaker 1: And there's a little QR code. You're like, all right, whatever,
Speaker 1: I'll see what this has to do with it. And
Speaker 1: there might be actually a video there that shows you
Speaker 1: what that product is good for, and maybe that convinces
Speaker 1: you to buy it. So it's it's added a new
Speaker 1: dimension to advertisement. But and even then, that's not the
Speaker 1: only thing QR codes are being used for, but it's
Speaker 1: very popular one. That's that's true. UM. Yeah, it's funny
Speaker 1: because um, you can also use it as sort of
Speaker 1: note to yourself to um, you know, when you're seeing
Speaker 1: something out in public and you go, oh, I need
Speaker 1: to remember that I want to look up, you know,
Speaker 1: look that up for more information later. Uh. Well, you
Speaker 1: know if you you scan the QR code and add
Speaker 1: it to your phone, um, then you can you know,
Speaker 1: save that for later. At least the application in my
Speaker 1: phone will allow me to store some for later, so
Speaker 1: I can go back and look it up. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I was. According according to denso Um, the QR code
Speaker 1: has a maximum numeric capacity of seven thousand, eighty nine
Speaker 1: characters UM. Alpha numerica is four thousand, two hundred ninety
Speaker 1: six UM. And if you want to store uh kanji,
Speaker 1: you can also do that as well. Although it can
Speaker 1: hold one thousand, eight hundred seventeen character characters. That's still
Speaker 1: that's still very impressive. And you can store quite a
Speaker 1: lot of information about something. And I can see lots
Speaker 1: of interesting applications, particularly in things like alternate reality games
Speaker 1: to use QR codes for example, UM, if you guys
Speaker 1: are familiar with alternate reality games at all, these are
Speaker 1: the games that often are are created by a marketing
Speaker 1: firm to to be part of a guerrilla marketing campaign
Speaker 1: for something else. One of the popular ones was along
Speaker 1: with It was called The Beast and it was part
Speaker 1: of the marketing push for the film AI. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: talked about that in a previous episode, I mean way previous.
Speaker 1: So so these these games, they they bridge the gap
Speaker 1: between reality and fantasy. You know, you you usually take
Speaker 1: an active part in trying to play a role within
Speaker 1: a fantasy setting, but you're doing it through real life actions.
Speaker 1: And that might be as simple as sending an email,
Speaker 1: or it may mean that you fill out some information
Speaker 1: and occasionally you get phone calls from characters within the game,
Speaker 1: and you in in real life have an impact on
Speaker 1: fictional characters within the game. And it's a very flexible,
Speaker 1: malleable type of gaming. And it's it's kind of fighting
Speaker 1: because it means that you get to play a part
Speaker 1: that's that's akin to what we think of as you know,
Speaker 1: secret agents. Right, It's kind of like this this crazy
Speaker 1: conspiracy written world where you are one of the people
Speaker 1: who are running around trying to to solve the world's
Speaker 1: problems and things you do have real impact and it
Speaker 1: makes you feel like a hero and it's kind of awesome.
Speaker 1: Um well, QR codes could play a big part in that.
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine that you create a movie that's all
Speaker 1: about conspiracy theories, and you create the posters for this movie,
Speaker 1: and you have in the corner of the poster a
Speaker 1: little QR code, and if you scan the QR code
Speaker 1: with a a smartphone, then it pulls up maybe a
Speaker 1: page of information. You've got You've got four thousand alpha
Speaker 1: numeric characters you can play with. You might have a
Speaker 1: secret message in there directed to people who are going
Speaker 1: to take the time to scan that, or it may
Speaker 1: send you to a website that starts you on this journey.
Speaker 1: And it's a great way to pull people in. And
Speaker 1: the thing about the thing one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: advertisers love QR codes is because even though it only
Speaker 1: hits a small percentage of the population, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: only a fraction of the people who see an advertisement
Speaker 1: with a QR code are going to take the time
Speaker 1: to actually scan that QR code, right right. But that
Speaker 1: section of the population is the are the people you
Speaker 1: want to go for, because one, they are engaged, they're
Speaker 1: interested enough in whatever is going on to take the
Speaker 1: time to scan that, so you already have their attention. Too.
Speaker 1: They are at least somewhat affluent because they have a
Speaker 1: device capable of scanning a QR code. So it's insidious, right,
Speaker 1: You've got this engaged somewhat wealthy or at least they
Speaker 1: have some discretionary income. Uh. This audience here, that's who
Speaker 1: you want when you're selling stuff. Yep. So uh, in
Speaker 1: a way, we're playing to their um, to their game.
Speaker 1: And also we should keep in mind that if it's
Speaker 1: a QR code where you are using it to to
Speaker 1: navigate to a web page, they can timestamp when you
Speaker 1: come to their web page and they can even get
Speaker 1: the information depending on on the way they've they've coded
Speaker 1: the page to know when and approximately where you are
Speaker 1: when you navigate to that that website. So now they
Speaker 1: have even more information on you. So they know one
Speaker 1: you're engaged to, you are you have enough money to
Speaker 1: have a smartphone? Three, they know what time you visited
Speaker 1: the site and for where you are. M hmm. Now
Speaker 1: that's not so scary to the point where you know
Speaker 1: you're gonna have guys in black suits knock on your
Speaker 1: door in the middle of the night and escort you
Speaker 1: to a secret military base, unless you're playing a really
Speaker 1: cool alternate reality game. Um. But it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where you know you've got to remember, like yeah,
Speaker 1: These things are fun and they give you a lot
Speaker 1: of information, but they don't just give you a lot
Speaker 1: of information. They give the people behind the QR code
Speaker 1: a little information. It might not be a lot, it
Speaker 1: may not be enough to invade your privacy, but it's
Speaker 1: still something to think about up well. And and the
Speaker 1: thing is, the people who are collecting this type of
Speaker 1: information don't are They're not really interested in doing those things.
Speaker 1: They want marketing information because for them it's more valuable anyway.
Speaker 1: It's a sure thing. So let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about how this actually works because it's kind of interesting. Um,
Speaker 1: there are different zones on a QR code, and there
Speaker 1: are different boxes that that mean different things. So those
Speaker 1: those three larger boxes that are in the corners the
Speaker 1: or three of the corners the the again the top right,
Speaker 1: top left, and bottom left, those corners that that's that's
Speaker 1: a those are positioning so it helps identify the fact that, yes,
Speaker 1: this is a QR code. They're the smaller boxes than
Speaker 1: the bottom right corner. It's in set a little bit,
Speaker 1: but it's got its own little border around it. That's
Speaker 1: an alignment box, and that helps the the software determine, uh,
Speaker 1: the angle that the camera is at because that's one thing, right,
Speaker 1: You can't predict how a person is going to hold
Speaker 1: the camera when they take up an image of a
Speaker 1: R code, So the QR code has to be readable
Speaker 1: from various angles and distances. Otherwise it's not useful. If
Speaker 1: if you always had to be directly above the QR
Speaker 1: code at a specific distance, it would be it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be user friendly enough for it to to have wide adoption.
Speaker 1: So using the distance and the orientation of these boxes
Speaker 1: in relation to one another, the software on your scanner,
Speaker 1: and your scanner again is just a piece of software
Speaker 1: that's on your smartphones. Using your camera, the software can
Speaker 1: determine the orientation of that QR code, the angle, and
Speaker 1: then be able to take that into account when reading
Speaker 1: the other dots that are further in the center. That's
Speaker 1: where the actual data is encoded. Um it you know,
Speaker 1: just based upon which areas are covered in black ink
Speaker 1: and which ones aren't. That's where it learns, you know,
Speaker 1: this is what it translates into, this this particular kind
Speaker 1: of information. But it has to be able to determine
Speaker 1: that orientation and an angle first, or else the distance
Speaker 1: may not seem quite right. You know, it may look
Speaker 1: like two two blocks of black ink are further apart
Speaker 1: than they actually are, which wouldn't that would that would
Speaker 1: mean that it would uh identify the information incorrectly if
Speaker 1: that were the case. So there's actually some error correction
Speaker 1: in this QR software as well. Yes, as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, you can do damage to the QR code,
Speaker 1: and within a reasonable amount of damage, the QR code
Speaker 1: can still be read because of the error correction. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Without that error correction, then you would have some real problems.
Speaker 1: Whenever let's say that you put a poster with a
Speaker 1: QR code, but you put on, say a a light
Speaker 1: post or or a telephone pole. Um. Now, so now
Speaker 1: you're talking about a surface that's curved, it's no longer
Speaker 1: a flat surface. Well, that could, uh, that could make
Speaker 1: the QR code look a little funky to the camera.
Speaker 1: But the error correction in the q R software is
Speaker 1: more often than not capable of taking that into account
Speaker 1: and still giving you the correct information on that QR code,
Speaker 1: assuming that no one's gone in and like use the
Speaker 1: black marker to black out half of the code. So
Speaker 1: it's it's a very robust kind of software and it's
Speaker 1: a very simple. Um uh code actually if you I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not hard to build an application that can actually
Speaker 1: encode information in the q R format. In fact, there
Speaker 1: are plenty out there that lets you do it for free. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've created several QR codes just for fun. I just
Speaker 1: use the website, um that you can, and there's several
Speaker 1: out there that you can just plug in a r
Speaker 1: L or even a short message, um, you know, and
Speaker 1: and printed out. One of the things that you'll notice
Speaker 1: if you do that, though, if you know, you start
Speaker 1: playing around and you have something fairly short, the boxes
Speaker 1: are are considerably larger. You can once you've done this
Speaker 1: a couple of times, you can look at it at
Speaker 1: a QR code and go, Okay, that one has a
Speaker 1: lot of text in it, and this one over here doesn't.
Speaker 1: Just by just by looking at it and just from
Speaker 1: the experience of having having played around with it, you'll
Speaker 1: be able to tell. But um, yeah, the Denzel Wave
Speaker 1: website has some information that sort of suggests that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it takes some special equipment. And at this point, um,
Speaker 1: they're so common that you know, you really don't need
Speaker 1: anything very special. I mean, you could you could print
Speaker 1: them out on on stickers. They don't have to be
Speaker 1: you know, they could be something that you pick up
Speaker 1: at your office supply store if you wanted to do that,
Speaker 1: or you know, just a plain piece of paper that
Speaker 1: you put up with a piece of tape. UM. It
Speaker 1: really doesn't take anything special. You just want to make
Speaker 1: sure that, uh, that there's not a lot of blurring.
Speaker 1: But even there, UM marketing companies, now that it's become
Speaker 1: common to use QR codes for these purposes, marketing companies
Speaker 1: are starting to experiment with them and add things like
Speaker 1: color and designs within that because uh, again it sort
Speaker 1: of depends on how much information you have stored in there.
Speaker 1: If you don't have very much information, if it's like
Speaker 1: a short U r L, the r L to your company,
Speaker 1: for example, you could put a design that's pleasing to
Speaker 1: the human eye in there. I've seen all kinds of
Speaker 1: of things. I actually have Jonathan's sort of craning to
Speaker 1: see my notes. Here's what I'm showing him. One with
Speaker 1: an elephant. Mashable actually had an article if you want
Speaker 1: to find it, UM where that was made from? Uh
Speaker 1: that was written by a Hamilton Chan. I believe UM
Speaker 1: and his company makes an iPhone app that that scans
Speaker 1: QR codes. But basically you can do things like you
Speaker 1: can round the corners of the boxes. They don't have
Speaker 1: to be square. You can put images in there as
Speaker 1: long as it doesn't interfere with the message you're trying
Speaker 1: to do. Um, you can you can basically make them
Speaker 1: into uh within reason. You can add some artistic qualities
Speaker 1: to it and still have readable by a QR code reader.
Speaker 1: That's right, Chris. Actually, I don't know who said the
Speaker 1: last thing. Tari is the one who gets to chew
Speaker 1: use that. But whatever the case, I hope you guys
Speaker 1: just take a little break with me. Come on, let's
Speaker 1: go here from our sponsor, there's some pretty cool applications
Speaker 1: that you and I could could put QR codes too. Besides,
Speaker 1: just you know, playfully like I created a secret message.
Speaker 1: I mean you could do that. There are enough kids
Speaker 1: out there now have smartphones. Like I remember back in
Speaker 1: the day you would write little secret messages to your
Speaker 1: buddies using whatever very simple replace code. Right, this symbol
Speaker 1: means A and this symbol means B. But QR codes
Speaker 1: give you the option of actually creating a message, encoding
Speaker 1: it in a into a QR code and then handing
Speaker 1: it to someone else. And it's only if you have
Speaker 1: a scanner that you're able to read it. Now, granted
Speaker 1: that's not safe information. Anyone with a scanner would be
Speaker 1: able to read it. You would you might want to
Speaker 1: encode it. Yes, you would have to encrypt it as
Speaker 1: well as as encoded into the so there'll be encryption
Speaker 1: and encoding in the same message. Otherwise, anyone with a smartphone,
Speaker 1: anyone with a smartphone with a QR code reader could
Speaker 1: intercept it. But think of it like this, Like let's
Speaker 1: say that I wanted to make new business cards for myself.
Speaker 1: I might create a QR code that if you scanned,
Speaker 1: it would take you to a full profile website about myself.
Speaker 1: And it might have my resume, It might have uh
Speaker 1: samples of my writing, It might have maybe a sample
Speaker 1: of the podcast. It might have a demo reel of
Speaker 1: my video work. All of that could be linked to
Speaker 1: my my business card. Now, I wouldn't want to put
Speaker 1: all those u r l s on a business card
Speaker 1: because it would just take up too much space. And
Speaker 1: you want a business card to look fairly elegant um. Now,
Speaker 1: so you could do that where you have your name
Speaker 1: and your title and all of that stuff. Or if
Speaker 1: it's a personal business card like the one I was
Speaker 1: talking about, it might be your name and your general
Speaker 1: area of expertise and the QR code takes care of
Speaker 1: the rest of it. I've actually seen, for the mind
Speaker 1: has a business card, um where all it had was
Speaker 1: his name on it and the QR code, and you
Speaker 1: would scan it and would take you to his website
Speaker 1: where it had all the rest of the information and um, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's uh, it's his actar. I don't mind saying his
Speaker 1: name because he's a uh he's now a journalist with
Speaker 1: This Week in Tech. He's a regular on Tech News today.
Speaker 1: So it worked out for him. So the way to
Speaker 1: go I is and uh, he's a great guy. So
Speaker 1: I was, and I was blown away when I saw
Speaker 1: his business card. It was one of the earliest ones
Speaker 1: I had seen that used the QR code, so he
Speaker 1: was really on the cutting edge of that as far
Speaker 1: as the United States is concerned. Keep in mind that
Speaker 1: again in Japan, this has been around for a couple
Speaker 1: of decades, but only since smartphones have really taken off
Speaker 1: in the US, so we can really kind of point
Speaker 1: our fingers to the iPhone. I think and say the
Speaker 1: iPhone is what led the revolution in the consumer marketplace
Speaker 1: in the United States for the smartphone to really take off.
Speaker 1: That's why we're starting to see QR codes everywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it is true though that the QR codes
Speaker 1: are are so ubiquitous now that you all the major
Speaker 1: smartphone manufacturers have apps and you can find if you're
Speaker 1: interested in doing this, you can find a free app.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I know there's there's some for iPhone
Speaker 1: and Android both and I'm assuming probably for BlackBerry, and
Speaker 1: there's there's BlackBerry. I'm sure there's web os as web
Speaker 1: os UM. But you know, as you were saying earlier
Speaker 1: in the show, UM, I mean, we don't want to
Speaker 1: move too far from QR codes. But in researching this, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the densil Wave website does list some of
Speaker 1: the others. UM. But I found the fp codes service
Speaker 1: or standard by Fujitsu, which uses UM basically encodes the
Speaker 1: the code inside an image on a poster UM using
Speaker 1: yellow ink, which makes it more or less invisible. It
Speaker 1: doesn't it's not as obvious as a QR code. UM.
Speaker 1: And there have been people who are doing this basically
Speaker 1: using steganography, which is the art of hiding hiding messages
Speaker 1: within images. Yeah. So, so like you could say you
Speaker 1: had a um A poster up promoting your company's business,
Speaker 1: and you just had a picture of whatever it is
Speaker 1: that you do, the service that you provide people, you know,
Speaker 1: going through business meeting or whatever, and somebody scanned the
Speaker 1: picture with their phone and there may not be overtly
Speaker 1: a code in there, but just by scanning the the image,
Speaker 1: it would pull up the information just because there's a
Speaker 1: code embedded within the image, which I think is fascinating stuff.
Speaker 1: But the downside of that, and and I was thinking, wow,
Speaker 1: you know this, this actually has been out for quite
Speaker 1: some time. The press release UM that I read came
Speaker 1: out years ago, and I was thinking, why have you know,
Speaker 1: I've we've heard of QR codes. Maybe it's that the
Speaker 1: FP codes aren't um you know, it's like in in
Speaker 1: America the same the same thing. We're just not having
Speaker 1: the adoption rate that we might for the QR codes.
Speaker 1: Then I thought, well, this is not quite as useful
Speaker 1: for marketing, at least not yet, because with the QR
Speaker 1: codes you have the colorful symbol, you know, black and
Speaker 1: white square that's obvious on the poster. And you know
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to scan this. I mean, at least if
Speaker 1: you have a phone that that does this. A lot
Speaker 1: of people still don't know. Again that's why we're doing
Speaker 1: the podcast. But but it's there's no point in embedding
Speaker 1: code within an image if people don't think to pick
Speaker 1: up their phone and scan it. And even even if
Speaker 1: you pick up your phone and take a picture of it,
Speaker 1: you still have to use the right application to interpret
Speaker 1: that code. Right Like, if if I just take a
Speaker 1: picture of a QR code, my phone doesn't know that
Speaker 1: that's that it needs to decode that information. It's only
Speaker 1: when I open up specific QR code decoders, uh and
Speaker 1: and though that will analyze the actual information that's within
Speaker 1: that QR code and then give me the proper response.
Speaker 1: So you would have to know one that you have
Speaker 1: to take an image of whatever that poster is, or
Speaker 1: that or that now anything, it doesn't even have to
Speaker 1: be a poster um. And two you would have to
Speaker 1: use the right the correct application. And if everyone's using
Speaker 1: a different set of standards, then you would have to
Speaker 1: have an application for every single company, right you would
Speaker 1: it would only be if something had become standardized across
Speaker 1: multiple companies, like the QR code. People are using that
Speaker 1: as a de facto standard. Is not a standard, but
Speaker 1: people are using it as if it were. UH. And
Speaker 1: we've seen cure codes used even on UH in in television,
Speaker 1: because remember we watched UH. After we did our our
Speaker 1: episode about cyber bullying, we decided to watch the Stephen
Speaker 1: Colbert and Jimmy Fallon UH tribute to the song Friday Yes.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the song there was a
Speaker 1: guy in the back holding up a QR code UH sign.
Speaker 1: And if you were to pause the video as we did,
Speaker 1: and then use a QR code reader as we did
Speaker 1: to determine what that was, you would be led to
Speaker 1: a special video that Jimmy Fallon made as a thank
Speaker 1: you to people who had donated to the cause and
Speaker 1: UH and and just kind of rambled it wasn't sort
Speaker 1: of like this podcast, but it didn't. It didn't UH.
Speaker 1: It was It was interesting that they had done it.
Speaker 1: It was kind of a cool thing, and you might
Speaker 1: actually see that that could be even a neat thing
Speaker 1: that you start seeing in incorporated into say web series.
Speaker 1: It would be very easy to do television and movies,
Speaker 1: i'd be probably, I'm guessing won't happen as often, especially
Speaker 1: for films, because one, you don't want to encourage everyone
Speaker 1: to whip their smartphone out and light up the theater
Speaker 1: with all all those screens, and too, you would have
Speaker 1: to have it on screen long enough for people to
Speaker 1: be able to train their cameras on it. Um. So
Speaker 1: if it would work from that distance, yeah, no, I've
Speaker 1: heard of I've heard of QR codes that are on
Speaker 1: billboards that could and at least in theory, on a
Speaker 1: clear day, be scanned from up to one mile away. Well, sure,
Speaker 1: on a clear day you could see forever. I'm good. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's so good that you're just out of smack and range. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it appears that they finally made their
Speaker 1: their appearance for good over here. I'm sorry I used
Speaker 1: appearance too many times. Um, But yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: think they're sort of around to stay for the short term.
Speaker 1: I think they will eventually be replaced by something a
Speaker 1: little bit more, um, something less obvious to the eye.
Speaker 1: But right, it'll take some time for people to get
Speaker 1: used to the idea that they're hidden messages and their
Speaker 1: their real life Easter eggs everywhere I go, and all
Speaker 1: I need to see them as a smartphone. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really just a matter of time before we start seeing
Speaker 1: smartphones with cameras that have that capability already built into
Speaker 1: the camera feature where automatically detect that sort of stuff
Speaker 1: without you having to tell it to go to a
Speaker 1: special a special application, that sort of thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: we also see it with the augmented reality uh applications,
Speaker 1: where like the idea of having the facial recognition software
Speaker 1: so that you can recognize a specific person's face, you
Speaker 1: create a profile of that person. I think that's fascinating, right,
Speaker 1: and then you would hold like let's say I hold
Speaker 1: up my camera to to Chris here, and I've I've
Speaker 1: built in his profile, and then I see floating around
Speaker 1: his head his Twitter feed or his Facebook feed, which
Speaker 1: are all empty because he never updates them. But uh,
Speaker 1: but let's say that then that that could be a
Speaker 1: something that you would build into the camera feature as well.
Speaker 1: So there may come a day where your basic smartphone
Speaker 1: camera will have all these features built in specifically to
Speaker 1: the to the system. Yeah. Yeah, although I hope they,
Speaker 1: the people who make these devices will put an off
Speaker 1: switch for that because I guess he you know, taking
Speaker 1: the family to the amusement park. You get everybody in
Speaker 1: the shot and you're like, okay, everybody say cheese and
Speaker 1: over their shoulders, like you know, buy so and so
Speaker 1: soft drink. Everything is. I don't want that now. I
Speaker 1: just want to take a photo of my family. I
Speaker 1: would imagine that you would be able to set layers.
Speaker 1: I'm really hoping, just like just like with mapping applications,
Speaker 1: where you can look at things like traffic layers and
Speaker 1: satellite images as opposed to maps. I would imagine. Uh. Granted,
Speaker 1: I'm not the one who's um design these things, so
Speaker 1: we know sometimes the manufacturers go, but everyone wants that
Speaker 1: the kitchen sink, that's what we should throw in there. Well,
Speaker 1: that wraps up this classic episode of tech Stuff. We laughed,
Speaker 1: we loved, we learned so so much. If you guys
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