Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette
Speaker 1: and I'm an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: It's silly to be depressed by it. I mean, one
Speaker 1: thinks of it like being alive in a box. One
Speaker 1: keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one
Speaker 1: is dead, which should make all the difference, shouldn't it.
Speaker 1: I mean, you never know you were in a box,
Speaker 1: would you? It would just be like you were asleep
Speaker 1: in a box. Not that I'd like to be sleep
Speaker 1: in a box, mind you that, not without any air.
Speaker 1: You'd wake up dead for a start, And then where
Speaker 1: would you be in a box? That's the bit I
Speaker 1: don't like. Frankly, That's why I don't think of it,
Speaker 1: because you'd be helpless, wouldn't you stuffed in a box
Speaker 1: like that? I mean, you'd be in there forever, even
Speaker 1: taking into account the fact that you're dead. It isn't
Speaker 1: a pleasant thought, especially if you're dead. Really, ask yourself
Speaker 1: if I asked you straight off, I'm going to stuff
Speaker 1: you in this box now, would you rather be alive
Speaker 1: or dead? Naturally, you'd prefer to be alive. Life in
Speaker 1: a box is better than no life at all. I
Speaker 1: expect you'd have a chance at least that if you
Speaker 1: are tuning in for the first time. Jonathan is always
Speaker 1: starts off the episode with a quote, and that is
Speaker 1: now the longest quote on record to begin an episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff. It's also one of my favorite plays
Speaker 1: in the whole wide world. Right, Well, let us know
Speaker 1: if you can identify the source of the quote. As always, Um,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say something about living in a box,
Speaker 1: living in a cardboard box, but that would have been
Speaker 1: yeah anyway, So today we actually aren't going to talk
Speaker 1: about things that are in fact square. Uh in a way,
Speaker 1: they're a little square too in the slang sense, because
Speaker 1: we're just talking about you know, what's there in black
Speaker 1: and white encoded information in the form of a QR
Speaker 1: code q R meaning quick response. Yes, Um, I guess
Speaker 1: we should probably give a little background, kind of do
Speaker 1: a little backtracking before we actually talk about QR codes
Speaker 1: and maybe talk about bar codes. 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: deceptively simple. It's the idea that you you create this
Speaker 1: series of lines and then you have a scanner. The
Speaker 1: skinner uses light to to bounce off of that series
Speaker 1: of lines, and technically it's just bouncing off the white
Speaker 1: spaces in between the lines, and the the with between
Speaker 1: the lines determines what information is encoded there. And so
Speaker 1: by standardizing this information, you can make this series of
Speaker 1: 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. Uh, that's
Speaker 1: you know, it just takes an instant which is why
Speaker 1: you know, it seems crazy to us. All we have
Speaker 1: to do is hold up this little series of bars
Speaker 1: up to a screen and then almost it seems like
Speaker 1: it's instantaneous. Beep, there goes the price. And um, of course,
Speaker 1: unless there's some problem with the barcode, in which case
Speaker 1: you scan, you scan, you scan, you rub it against something,
Speaker 1: you scan it again. Then eventually you you type in
Speaker 1: physically the the series of numbers underneath the barcode UH
Speaker 1: two into the computer so you can register your purchase
Speaker 1: uh those series of numbers. That's actually what is encoded
Speaker 1: in that barcode. There's not There have been CONSI the
Speaker 1: theories about things that have been encoded in barcodes, but
Speaker 1: really barcodes just cannot hold the sort of information, nor
Speaker 1: is there any real way of of establishing that that
Speaker 1: product belongs to you the person, unless you're you've also
Speaker 1: got like a frequent buyers card type thing, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's useful um for inventory keeping it as
Speaker 1: you pointed out, that's that's why it was created. UM.
Speaker 1: The thing is, you know, if you have a store. UM.
Speaker 1: And this is something that we've mentioned before and other
Speaker 1: people mentioned before about the difference in internet retailers and
Speaker 1: physical what they call brick and mortar stores. There are
Speaker 1: only so many items that you can hold in most
Speaker 1: brick and mortar stores, even the superstores. I would say,
Speaker 1: you're not going to exhaust um. I mean, it would
Speaker 1: be hard to hold a variety of of stuff in
Speaker 1: a brick and mortar store. That would exhaust the number
Speaker 1: of UPC codes that you might use. Yes, that was
Speaker 1: redundant UPC code. You're talking about twenty digit number. I
Speaker 1: mean that's yeah, that's that's a lot of N has
Speaker 1: a lot of digits. So but then, but then there
Speaker 1: are times when you would like to have a way
Speaker 1: to store more information. Yeah, it might be that you
Speaker 1: want to be able to create, um uh, something that
Speaker 1: can allow you to to categorize and subcategorize and sub
Speaker 1: subcategorized product or a piece. Um let's say that you
Speaker 1: are a car manufacturing plant. I am a car manufacturing plant,
Speaker 1: and you have very many pieces that you have to
Speaker 1: keep track of for an individual car, and you make
Speaker 1: several different models of cars. So therefore you have a plethora,
Speaker 1: if you will, a plethora of car parts. Do you
Speaker 1: know what a plethora means? Um? So, Yeah, You've got
Speaker 1: all these different parts and pieces and they all fit
Speaker 1: in different ways, and you need to be able to
Speaker 1: encode that information so you make it very uh efficient. Well,
Speaker 1: the barcode may not give you the flexibility you need
Speaker 1: because we call the barcode a one D code, meaning
Speaker 1: that the direction is encoded or the information is encoded
Speaker 1: in one direction, all right, So that one direction would
Speaker 1: be the fact you know that these little gaps between
Speaker 1: the bars that's where the info is encoded. You would
Speaker 1: want to create a different encoding device, something that perhaps
Speaker 1: is a two D code, and two D means that
Speaker 1: you can the information is encoded both horizontally and vertically.
Speaker 1: So now you've got a much larger playing ground where
Speaker 1: you can create, um far more detailed information encoding than
Speaker 1: you could with a bar code. That was the idea
Speaker 1: 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 believe UM on their packaging,
Speaker 1: but it's not a QR code. It's similar to it
Speaker 1: UM it's the MAXI code that's the one they use
Speaker 1: um so, but the concept is is very much the same.
Speaker 1: It's the idea that you have this and you've probably
Speaker 1: seen these. It's the that that box with all the
Speaker 1: little black dots in it. Yes, it looks like there's
Speaker 1: usually three boxes that are well, there's always three buckses.
Speaker 1: There's three buckses there. They have a little border around
Speaker 1: them at at the top right, top left, and bottom
Speaker 1: left corners. And then if you look carefully, you might
Speaker 1: see that there's a tinier little dot. Uh, that's a
Speaker 1: little bit set in from the bottom right corner that
Speaker 1: also has a little border around it. Well, that's a
Speaker 1: QR code. And the information, the information that can be
Speaker 1: stored in the QR code far outstrips that of a
Speaker 1: bar code. Yes, Now some people have said that they
Speaker 1: are three D 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 two 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 is directions, and yes, it because
Speaker 1: of the different directions, I think some people sort of
Speaker 1: started calling them that. But that's a that's a sort
Speaker 1: of a slang term and it's not really uh technically
Speaker 1: correct when referring to 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 information,
Speaker 1: even at the size it is. But QR codes of
Speaker 1: 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: 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 producduck, 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 it probably 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 that and even then, that's not
Speaker 1: the only thing QR codes are being used for, but
Speaker 1: it's very popular one. That's that's true. Um Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: funny because uh um you you can also use it
Speaker 1: as sort of a note to yourself to um, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're seeing something out in public and you go, oh,
Speaker 1: I need to remember that I want to look up
Speaker 1: you know, look that up for more information later. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, if you you scan the QR code and
Speaker 1: add 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: that I can go back and look it up. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I was. According according to and so UM, the QR
Speaker 1: code has a maximum numeric capacity of seven thousand, eighty
Speaker 1: nine characters UM. Alpha numerica is four thousand, two hundred
Speaker 1: ninety six UM. And if you want to store uh
Speaker 1: kanji you can also do that as well. Though it
Speaker 1: can hold one thousand, eight hundred seventeen 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 h to be part of a guerrilla marketing
Speaker 1: campaign for something else. One of the popular ones was
Speaker 1: along with UM. It was called The Beast, and it
Speaker 1: was part of the marketing push for the film Ai. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we talked about that in a previous episode, and I
Speaker 1: mean way previous. So so these these games, they they
Speaker 1: bridge the gap between reality and fantasy. You know, you
Speaker 1: you usually take an active part in trying to play
Speaker 1: a role within a fantasy setting, but you're doing it
Speaker 1: through real life actions. And that might be as simple
Speaker 1: as sending an email, or it may mean that you
Speaker 1: fill out some information and occasionally you get phone calls
Speaker 1: from characters within the game, and you in in real
Speaker 1: life have an impact on fictional characters within the game.
Speaker 1: And it's a very flexible, malleable type of gaming. And
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of exciting because it means that you
Speaker 1: get to play a part that's that's akin to what
Speaker 1: we think of as you know, secret agents. Right, It's
Speaker 1: kind of like this this crazy conspiracy written world where
Speaker 1: you are one of the people who are running around
Speaker 1: trying to to solve the world's problems and things you
Speaker 1: do have real impact and it makes you feel, like
Speaker 1: he wrote, it's kind of awesome. Um, well, QR codes
Speaker 1: could play a big part in that. I mean, imagine
Speaker 1: that you create a movie that's all about conspiracy theories,
Speaker 1: and you create the posters for this movie, and you
Speaker 1: have in the corner of the poster a little QR code,
Speaker 1: and if you scan the QR code with a a smartphone,
Speaker 1: then it pulls up maybe a page of information. You've
Speaker 1: got You've got four thousand alpha numeric characters you can
Speaker 1: play with. You might have a secret message in there
Speaker 1: directed to people who are going to take the time
Speaker 1: to scan that, or it may send you to a
Speaker 1: website that starts you on this journey. And it's a
Speaker 1: great way to pull people in. And the thing about
Speaker 1: the thing one of the reasons why advertisers love QR
Speaker 1: codes is because even though it only hits a small
Speaker 1: percentage of the population, uh, you know, only a fraction
Speaker 1: of the people who see an advertisement with a QR
Speaker 1: code are going to take the time to actually scan
Speaker 1: that QR code, right right, But that section of the
Speaker 1: population is the are the people you want to go for,
Speaker 1: because one, they are engaged, they're interested enough in whatever
Speaker 1: is going on to take the time to scan that,
Speaker 1: so you already have their attention. Too. They are at
Speaker 1: least somewhat affluent because they have a device capable of
Speaker 1: scanning a QR code. So it's insidious right, you've got
Speaker 1: this engaged somewhat wealthy or at least they have some
Speaker 1: discretionary income. Uh. This audience here, that's who you want
Speaker 1: when you're selling stuff. So uh, in a way, we're
Speaker 1: playing to their um, to their game. And also we
Speaker 1: should keep in mind that if it's a QR code
Speaker 1: where you are using it to to navigate to a
Speaker 1: web page, they can time stamp when you come to
Speaker 1: their web page and they can even get the information
Speaker 1: depending on on the way they've they've coded the page
Speaker 1: to know when and approximately where you are when you
Speaker 1: navigate to that that website. So now they have even
Speaker 1: more information on you. So they know one you're engaged to,
Speaker 1: you are you have enough money to have a smartphone? Three,
Speaker 1: they know what time you visited the site and for
Speaker 1: where you are. Mm hmm. No, Now that's not so
Speaker 1: scary to the point where you know you're gonna have
Speaker 1: guys in black suits knock on your door in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night and escort you to a secret
Speaker 1: military base, unless you're playing a really cool alternate reality game. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's one of those things where you know you've
Speaker 1: got to remember, like, yeah, these things are fun and
Speaker 1: they give you a lot of information. But they don't
Speaker 1: just give you a lot of information. They give the
Speaker 1: people behind the QR code a little information. It might
Speaker 1: not be a lot, it may not be enough to
Speaker 1: invade your privacy, but it's still something to think about. Yeah. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and and the thing is, the people who are collecting
Speaker 1: this type of information don't are They're not really interested
Speaker 1: in doing those things. They want marketing information because for
Speaker 1: them it's more valuable anyway, it's a sure thing. So
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about how this actually works
Speaker 1: because it's kind of interesting. Um, there are different zones
Speaker 1: on a QR code, and there are different boxes that
Speaker 1: that mean different things. So those those three larger boxes
Speaker 1: that are in the corners the or three of the
Speaker 1: corners the the again the top right, top left, and
Speaker 1: bottom left, those corners that that's that's a those are
Speaker 1: positioning so it helps identify the fact that, yes, this
Speaker 1: is a QR code. There the smaller boxes in the
Speaker 1: bottom right corner. It's in set a little bit, but
Speaker 1: it's got its own little border around it. That's an
Speaker 1: 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: QR 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 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 angle first, or else the distance may
Speaker 1: not seem quite right, you know, it may look like
Speaker 1: to two blocks of black ink are further apart than
Speaker 1: they actually are, which would that would that would mean
Speaker 1: that it would uh identify the information incorrectly if that
Speaker 1: were the case. So there's actually some error correction in
Speaker 1: this QR software as well. Yes, it's a matter of fact.
Speaker 1: You can do damage to the QR code and within
Speaker 1: a reasonable amount of damage, the QR code can still
Speaker 1: be read because of the error correction. Yeah. Without that
Speaker 1: error correction, then you would have some real problems. Whenever
Speaker 1: let's say that you put a poster with a QR code,
Speaker 1: but you put on, say a a light post or
Speaker 1: or a telephone pole. Um Now, so now you're talking
Speaker 1: about a surface that's curved, it's no longer a flat surface.
Speaker 1: Well that could, uh, that could make the QR code
Speaker 1: look a little funky to the camera. But the error
Speaker 1: correction in the q R software is more often than
Speaker 1: not capable of taking that into account and still giving
Speaker 1: you the correct information on that QR code, assuming that
Speaker 1: no one's gone in and like use the black marker
Speaker 1: to blackout half of the code. So it's it's a
Speaker 1: very robust kind of software and it's a very simple,
Speaker 1: um uh code. Actually, if you I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: hard to build an application that can actually encode information
Speaker 1: in the q R format. In fact, there are plenty
Speaker 1: out there that lets you do it for free. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've created several QR codes just for fun. Uh, I
Speaker 1: just use the website, um that you can, and there
Speaker 1: are several out there that you you can just plug
Speaker 1: in a r L or even a short message. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, and and uh printed out. One of the
Speaker 1: things that you'll notice if you do that though, if
Speaker 1: you know, you start playing around when you have something
Speaker 1: fairly short, the boxes are are considerably larger. You can
Speaker 1: once you've done this a couple of times, you can
Speaker 1: look at a QR code and go, Okay, that one
Speaker 1: has a lot of text in it, and this one
Speaker 1: over here doesn't. Just by just by looking at it
Speaker 1: and just from the experience of having having played around
Speaker 1: with it, you'll be able to tell. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Denzel Wave website has some information that sort of
Speaker 1: suggests that, uh, you know, it takes some special equipment.
Speaker 1: And at this point, um, they're so common that you know,
Speaker 1: you really don't need anything very special. I mean, you
Speaker 1: could you could print them out on on stickers. They
Speaker 1: don't have to be you know, it could be something
Speaker 1: that you pick up at your office supply store if
Speaker 1: you wanted to do that, or you know, just a
Speaker 1: plain piece of paper that you put up with a
Speaker 1: piece of tape. UM. It really doesn't take anything special.
Speaker 1: You just want to make sure that that there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of blurring. But even there UM marketing companies
Speaker 1: now that it's become common to use QR codes for
Speaker 1: these purposes, marketing companies are starting to experiment with them
Speaker 1: and add things like color and designs within that because uh,
Speaker 1: again it sort of depends on how much information you
Speaker 1: have stored in there. If you don't have very much information,
Speaker 1: if it's like a a short U r L, the
Speaker 1: r L to your company, for example, you could put
Speaker 1: a design that's pleasing to the human eye in there.
Speaker 1: I've seen all kinds of of things. I actually have
Speaker 1: Jonathan's sort of craning to see my notes. Here's what
Speaker 1: I'm showing him. One with an elephant And Mashable actually
Speaker 1: had an article if you want to find it, um
Speaker 1: where that was made from? Uh it was written by
Speaker 1: a Hamilton Channa believe UM and his company makes it
Speaker 1: an iPhone app that that scans QR codes. But basically
Speaker 1: you can do things like you can round the corners
Speaker 1: of the boxes. They don't have to be square. You
Speaker 1: can put images in there as long as it doesn't
Speaker 1: interfere with the message you're trying to do. Um you
Speaker 1: can you can basically make them into uh read within reason.
Speaker 1: You can add some artistic qualities to it and still
Speaker 1: readable by a QR code reader. And there's some also,
Speaker 1: there's some pretty cool applications that you and I could
Speaker 1: could put QR codes too. Besides, just you know, playfully
Speaker 1: like I created a secret message. I mean you could
Speaker 1: do that. There are enough kids out there now have smartphones.
Speaker 1: Like I remember back in the day, you would write
Speaker 1: little secret messages to your buddies using whatever very simple
Speaker 1: replace code. Right, yeah, this symbol means A and this
Speaker 1: symbol means B. But QR codes give you the option
Speaker 1: of actually creating a message, encoding it in a into
Speaker 1: a QR code, and then handing it to someone else.
Speaker 1: And it's only if you have a scanner that you're
Speaker 1: able to read it. Now, granted that's not safe information,
Speaker 1: anyone with a scanner would be able to read it.
Speaker 1: You would you might want to encode it. Yes, you
Speaker 1: would have to encrypt it as well as as encoded
Speaker 1: into the so there'll be encryption and encoding in the
Speaker 1: same message. Otherwise, anyone with a smartphone, anyone with a
Speaker 1: smartphone with a QR code reader could intercept it. But
Speaker 1: think of it like this. Like let's say that I
Speaker 1: wanted to make new business cards for myself. I might
Speaker 1: create a QR code that if you scanned, it would
Speaker 1: take you to a full profile website about myself, and
Speaker 1: it might have my resume, it might have uh samples
Speaker 1: of my writing, it might have maybe a sample of
Speaker 1: the podcast, It might have a demo reel of my
Speaker 1: video work. All of that could be linked to my
Speaker 1: my business card. Now, I wouldn't want to put all
Speaker 1: those u r l's on a business card because it
Speaker 1: would just take up too much space. And you want
Speaker 1: a business card to look fairly elegant um now, so
Speaker 1: you could do that where you have your name and
Speaker 1: your title and all of that stuff. Or if it's
Speaker 1: a personal business card like the one I was talking about,
Speaker 1: it might be your name and your general area of
Speaker 1: expertise and the QR code takes care of the rest
Speaker 1: of it. I've actually seen a friend of mine has
Speaker 1: a business card, um where all it had was his
Speaker 1: name on it and the QR code, and you would
Speaker 1: scan it and would take you to his website where
Speaker 1: it had all the rest of the information and um,
Speaker 1: yeah he's uh, it's eyes actar. I don't mind saying
Speaker 1: his name because he's a uh he's now a journalist
Speaker 1: with This Week in Tech. He's a regular on Tech
Speaker 1: News today. So it worked out for him. So the
Speaker 1: way to go, I is and uh, he's a great guy.
Speaker 1: So I was, and I was blown away when I
Speaker 1: saw his business card. It was one of the earliest
Speaker 1: ones I had seen that used the QR code, So
Speaker 1: he was really on the cutting edge of that as
Speaker 1: far as the United States is concerned. Keep in mind
Speaker 1: that again in Japan, this has been around for a
Speaker 1: couple of decades, but only since smartphones have really taken
Speaker 1: off in the US. So we can really kind of
Speaker 1: point our fingers to the iPhone, I think, and say,
Speaker 1: the iPhone is what led the revolution in the consumer
Speaker 1: marketplace in the United States for the smartphone to really
Speaker 1: take off. 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 uh, you know, all
Speaker 1: the major smartphone manufacturers have apps and you can find
Speaker 1: if you're interested in doing this, you can find a
Speaker 1: free app. I'm pretty sure I know there's there are
Speaker 1: some for iPhone and Android both and I'm assuming probably
Speaker 1: for BlackBerry and there's there's BlackBerry. I'm sure there's web
Speaker 1: os as os UM. But you know, as you were
Speaker 1: saying earlier in the show, UM, I mean, we don't
Speaker 1: want to move too far from QR codes. But in
Speaker 1: researching this, uh, you know, the densil Wave website does
Speaker 1: list some of the others. UM. But I found the
Speaker 1: FP codes service or standard by Fujitsu, which uses UM
Speaker 1: basically encodes the the code inside an image on a
Speaker 1: poster UM using yellow ink, which makes it more or
Speaker 1: less invisible. It doesn't it's not as obvious as a
Speaker 1: QR code. UM. And there have been people who are
Speaker 1: doing this basically using steganography, which is the art of
Speaker 1: hiding hiding images. Yeah. So so like you could say
Speaker 1: you 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 uh, somebody scanned
Speaker 1: the picture with their phone, and there may not be
Speaker 1: overtly a code in there, but just by scanning the
Speaker 1: the image, it would pull up the information just because
Speaker 1: there's a code embedded within the image, which I think
Speaker 1: is fascinating stuff. But the downside of that, and I
Speaker 1: was thinking, wow, you know this, this actually has been
Speaker 1: out for quite some time. The press release UM that
Speaker 1: I read came out years ago, and I was thinking,
Speaker 1: why have you know I've we've heard of QR codes.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's that the FP codes aren't um. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like in America the same the same thing. We're
Speaker 1: just not having the adoption rate that we might for
Speaker 1: the QR codes. Then I thought, well, this is not
Speaker 1: quite as useful for marketing, at least not yet, because
Speaker 1: with the QR codes, you have the the colorful symbol,
Speaker 1: you know, black and white square that's obvious on the poster.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm supposed to scan this. I mean,
Speaker 1: at least if you have a phone that that does
Speaker 1: this a lot of people still don't know. Again that's
Speaker 1: why we're doing the podcast. But but it's there's no
Speaker 1: point in embedding code within an image if people don't
Speaker 1: think to pick up their phone and scan it. And
Speaker 1: even even if you pick up your phone and take
Speaker 1: a picture of it, you still have to use the
Speaker 1: right application to interpret that code. Right Like if if
Speaker 1: I just take a picture of a QR code, my
Speaker 1: phone doesn't know that that's that it needs to decode
Speaker 1: that information. It's only when I open up specific QR
Speaker 1: code decoders uh and and though that will analyze the
Speaker 1: actual information that's within that QR code and then give
Speaker 1: me the proper response. So you would have to know
Speaker 1: one that you have to take an image of whatever
Speaker 1: that poster is or that or that you know anything.
Speaker 1: It doesn't even have to be a poster um. And
Speaker 1: two you would have to use the right the correct application.
Speaker 1: And if everyone's using a different set of standards, then
Speaker 1: you would have to have an application for every single company,
Speaker 1: right you would. It would only be if something had
Speaker 1: become standardized across multiple companies, Like the QR code. People
Speaker 1: are using that as a de facto standard. Is not
Speaker 1: a standard, but people are using it as if it were.
Speaker 1: Uh And we've seen QURE codes used even on uh
Speaker 1: in in television, because remember we watched UH. After we
Speaker 1: did our our episode about cyber bullying, we decided to
Speaker 1: watch the Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon UH tribute to
Speaker 1: the song Friday Yes. And at the end of the
Speaker 1: song there was a guy in the back holding up
Speaker 1: a QR code UH sign. And if you were to
Speaker 1: pause the video as we did, and then use a
Speaker 1: QR code reader as we did to determine what that was,
Speaker 1: you would be led to a special video that Jimmy
Speaker 1: Fallon made as a thank you to people who had
Speaker 1: donated to the cause, and UH and and just uh
Speaker 1: it kind of rambled. It wasn't sort of like this podcast,
Speaker 1: but it didn't. It didn't. Uh. It was interesting that
Speaker 1: they had done it. It It was kind of a cool thing,
Speaker 1: and you might actually see that that could be even
Speaker 1: a neat thing that you start seeing in incorporated into
Speaker 1: say web series. It would be very easy to do
Speaker 1: television and movies, I'd be probably, I'm guessing won't happen
Speaker 1: as often, especially for films, because one, you don't want
Speaker 1: to encourage everyone to whip their smartphone out and light
Speaker 1: up the theater with all all those screens and to
Speaker 1: you would have to have it on screen long enough
Speaker 1: for people to be able to train their cameras on it. Um,
Speaker 1: So 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 a mile away. Well, sure,
Speaker 1: on a clear day you can 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 it'll take some time for people to get used
Speaker 1: to the idea that they're hidden messages and their their
Speaker 1: real life Easter eggs everywhere I go, and all I
Speaker 1: need to see them as a smartphone. Yeah, it's really
Speaker 1: just a matter of time before we start seeing smartphones
Speaker 1: with cameras that have that capability already built into the
Speaker 1: camera feature where automatically detect that sort of stuff without
Speaker 1: you having to tell it to go to a special
Speaker 1: a special application, that sort of thing. I mean, we
Speaker 1: also see it with the augmented reality uh applications, where
Speaker 1: like the idea of having the facial recognition software so
Speaker 1: that you can recognize a specific person's face, you create
Speaker 1: 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 that that could be a something
Speaker 1: 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 a an
Speaker 1: off switch for that, because I guess he you know,
Speaker 1: taking the family to the amusement park, you get everybody
Speaker 1: in the shot and you're like, okay, everybody say cheese
Speaker 1: and over their shoulders, like you know, buy so and
Speaker 1: so soft drink. Everything is I don't now, I just
Speaker 1: want to take a photo of my family. I would
Speaker 1: imagine that you would be able to set layers. I'm
Speaker 1: really hoping, just like just like with mapping applications, where
Speaker 1: you can look at things like traffic layers and satellite
Speaker 1: images as opposed to maps. I would imagine. Uh. Granted,
Speaker 1: I'm not the one who's um designing 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: let's wrap this up. That's a good discussion on QR codes,
Speaker 1: and like we said, they're probably just going to get
Speaker 1: more and more popular or be replaced by a comparable
Speaker 1: technology that everyone uses, because again, smartphones are everywhere. In fact,
Speaker 1: you know, we're starting to see smartphones take over where
Speaker 1: U where we used to see laptops ring supreme. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of interesting. So you guys, if you have
Speaker 1: any other kinds of cutting edge tech or actually this
Speaker 1: isn't really cutting edge because it's been out for a
Speaker 1: couple of decades, but if you have some technology you
Speaker 1: would like us to tackle, you think that it's interesting
Speaker 1: and you want to know more about it, let us
Speaker 1: know You can let us know on Twitter or Facebook
Speaker 1: are handled. There is tech stuff hs W break Insider.
Speaker 1: This an email that addresses text stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com and Chris and I will talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. To
Speaker 1: learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon
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