This is old news for those of you who have been to Japan. Anyone that’s used UPS or Fedex has seen these newfangled barcodes (QR code stands for "quick read") that allow them to be scanned from any direction. There is a lot of information that you can pack into these codes which can hold up to 3,000 alphanumeric characters on a single square. Squint your eyes and you can also see the Mona Lisa.
The most interesting applications are coming from Japan where cellphone software for the phone camera (you cannot buy a cellphone without a camera these days) can read the QR code and use it to navigate right to a web page on your phone’s web browser without having to use the numberpad to painfully enter in a long web address.
Magazines and newspapers also use this code to provide links to more information and advertisers put this mark onto their posters on commuter trains where a captive audience can click through for more details.
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