qr

I dressed up as a train engineer for a Halloween party, and it took half an hour to get the straps on my overalls adjusted right. Life would have been a lot easier if I had just gone with a QR code like Reddit user adriannezy.

She works in an IT department and wanted to participate in Halloween at an absolute minimum level. So she went with a QR code on her shirt.

The QR code links to a photo of her in a Star Trek costume that looks like a cross between Uhura and Spock. This represents geek chic on multiple levels.… Read more

QR codes are everywhere, and for good reason. They're easy to make, easier to scan, and are terrific for delivering info quickly and broadly (or narrowly, if you like). It seems likely that they're evolving, but they're still superuseful right now, and smart folks are uncovering all sorts of cool ways to make the most of them.

Before we get to the tricks, make sure you check out Nicole Cozma's great post for a smart overview and handy guide to creating your own QR codes.

Imagine sweeping your phone around a room and seeing a plethora of information about the pictures, music, and video around you. The Digimarc Discover app lets your phone read QR codes printed on products, identify tunes playing nearby, buy tickets when movies are advertised on a TV playing near you, and follow watermark links hidden in articles and product packaging.

Digital watermark purveyor Digimarc demoed the technology this spring and has now made the free app for iOS and Android available for download. The app falls somewhere between simple bar code readers and augmented-reality apps that recognize real-world objects and link information to them.

Digimarc Discover is the Swiss Army knife of real-world identification. It figures out the most appropriate identifying technologies for a given situation--QR code, watermark, audio and/or video--depending on where you are and how you've used it in the past.… Read more

We humans have clocks all over the place to tell time. But while we've been selfishly providing for ourselves, we've neglected the time-reading needs of robots, smartphones, and other machines.

The Clocks for Robots concept by London design consultancy BERG takes the needs of our future robot overlords to heart. The clock features a regular display that people can use and a constantly updated QR code for artificial eyes.

The QR code gives the time and location to portable devices. This could potentially tie in with real-world offers like coupons or signal to your smartphone what specials are currently active.

The QR codes could also help software recognize the time and date of photos for easier tagging and organization. … Read more

Dog-walking services have graduated from flyers on poles to full-fledged serious businesses. The final coming-of-age moment is the arrival of Pet Check Technology, a suite that brings QR codes, mobile apps, and GPS to the dog-walking experience.

For dog-walking entrepreneurs, Pet Check includes online tools for scheduling clients, billing, and tracking dog-walking employees. That's all well and good, but it's a lot more fun when you look at it from the customer's standpoint.

Customers can look to see exactly when Fido was taken out on a jaunt, where he went, and what time he got back. That can help with scheduling when you need to be home from work. Completed walk reports are stored for future reference.… Read more

The mobile world moves at a breakneck pace, and it's difficult to keep up--even without the technical jargon most industry insiders throw around. And they do love to toss those terms about.

This week, I attempt to explain one of technology's favorite buzzwords, no small feat given its broad use and different interpretations applied to it.

So for some light reading, here are a few terms telecom experts throw around with the assumption that everyone understands them.

Cloud: It's increasingly become one of the most oft-used words among technology circles. At its most basic level, it means … Read more

Quick response, or QR codes aren't being ignored so much after all.

Approximately 14 million U.S. mobile users in the U.S. used their smartphones to scan QR codes in the month of June 2011 alone, according to a new report from ComScore.

Here are the highlights of the majority numbers from different demographics in the survey: •14 million equates to 6.2 percent of the total U.S. mobile audience •60.5 percent of that audience was male •53.4 percent of that audience were between the ages of 18 and 34 •36.1 percent of that … Read more

Tattoos tend to walk a very fine line between the artistic and the gruesome. See what you think about this, perhaps the most technologically advanced tattoo in the world. Allegedly.

One has to use the word "allegedly" because there's an ad involved here--for Ballantine's whiskey.

Still, I fancy that this video will, at the very least, set off rampant urges in the Silicon Valley area to have its intentions duplicated on the bodies of multiple engineers.

What seems to be happening here is that a famed tattoo artist in Paris is inscribing a QR code onto (… Read more

There is a place where technology, Iceland, music, and fashion collide. You might think Bjork would be involved somewhere, but this magic place actually involves Icelandic pop star Kali from the group Steed Lord.

Kali is known for her boundary-pushing fashion along the lines of Lady Gaga. London designer Thorunn Arnadottir recently added to her eclectic wardrobe with a painstakingly beaded QR code dress.

While we've seen QR code fashion and QR code wall art recently, the dress, called "QR U?," ups the difficulty level considerably. The design is inspired by African bead work and executed in Swarovski crystals.

The QR codes link back to sites and videos that relate to Steed Lord. One YouTube video features a snippet of the song "Vanguardian" being sung by an animated QR code (check it out below).… Read more