With the widespread availability of mobile phones equipped with a camera, fast internet access and increasingly even GPS, some new ways of using these devices have emerged. Probably one of the most interesting and convenient uses are 2D barcodes:
These two-dimensional barcodes can store information that can be read by devices with a camera. For example, the
QR code in the print ad below contains a web address. If your phone is able to understand this barcode, you just have to take a photo of it to use the embedded information and, in this case, open the corresponding web page with additional product information in your phone's web browser.
Actually, this way of using printed barcodes to link physical objects to online content is probably the most common one. In Japan, where QR codes are already widely used, barcodes on posters or printed ads link to more information online. For example, a barcode on the poster of a new film could initiate a connection to the internet and show the trailer of that movie on your phone's screen.
Other uses include information about events (time, place, etc.) that can be saved in your calendar. Business cards can include barcodes that allow the easy transfer of all the information (name, address, phone numbers, email addresses, etc.) to the phone where it can be stored in your address book.
Other interesting projects are
Compare Everywhere and
Shop Savy that plan to provide shoppers with additional product information. Scan the barcode of a product (eg. a CD or a book) while you are in a shop and get instant product reviews or price comparisons.
However, there is one way of using 2D barcodes that I think is still underdeveloped: using QR codes to create POI (Points of Interest) in your GPS deviceI read a lot, both online and offline. Often I come across information that is linked to a physical location, for example, a great review of a restaurant in London or an article about a place to visit near Berlin. The problem is that I cannot keep track of all that information. By the next time I am in London or Berlin I probably will have lost or forgotten that specific information.
Here barcodes could clearly help me out. If a printed article about a restaurant would include the name, location, opening times and some extra text (like "best place to get vegetarian food in Berlin") encoded in a barcode I could just save that information on my GPS-enabled phone (similar to adding a Point of Interest, but without the hassle of adding the geo location and additional information manually). And the next time I am in Berlin my phone should remind me of that restaurant. Or driving past Bordeaux one day I should be reminded that close by is that little beautiful chateau I read about in a newspaper half a year ago.
In short, no more hassle of keeping a list of places to see, no more cutting out of articles from magazines to remember a restaurant (yes, I do that
The only problem will be to convince publishers to include QR codes (or any other type of 2D barcode) together with their articles.
ps. If you want to create your own QR code, try the online
QR Generator from the ZXing project. And you can read more about 2D barcodes on
2d-code.
Use QR codes to store and track POI (places of interest) via GPS devices, for example mobile phones. Combining this with articles in print media (like magazines or newspapers) would add an extra advantage and would use existing technology to allow linking offline and online content / places of interest.
cellphones, mobile phones, moviles, GPS, QR code, ads, magazines, newspapers, 2d barcode, POI, Points of Interest, geolocation
) this work by the Swedish artist Jan Svenungsson in a newspaper I find myself looking at it a lot. It somehow expresses my own feelings about living my life in-between different languages and the problems and frustrations (but also the joys and benefits) this often brings. 
