One of the greatest cultural achievements of the last Labour Government was making museum entry free for everyone. Whether you're rich, poor, British, foreign, young, old - you can enjoy the treasures of our museums and galleries. Of course, while museums are funded by the state, they still rely on generating some external revenue - hence the ubiquitous gift shop and major corporate donations. …
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There are plenty of QR generators which will render the code in ASCII, but I wanted to try something a little different. Is it possible to hide ASCII Art into QR Codes? Errr.... yes... It's pretty damn simple! I was surprised I couldn't find anyone else doing this. (\_/) (='.'=) (")_(") Becomes: Which, when scanned, renders as: Now, there are limits as to what you can put into a QR…
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I'm a big fan of QR codes. A few years ago, I did some work for a major UK retailer who wanted to put QR codes on some of their DIY products. Rather than ship expensive instructions with each item, there would be a QR code on the packaging which linked directly to a video explaining how to use whatever it was you'd just purchased. The idea was a success and is now helping them cut costs - even …
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BitCoin and other crypto-currencies are gaining popularity at the moment - but I remain firmly convinced that they're too hard for the average person to use. I have, however, watched with interest as an ecosystem grows around them. In particular, I like the way The Pirate Bay (and others) have used QR codes to facilitate easy payments and donations. The QR codes contain only three variables -…
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Public transport is a great way to assess the Zeitgeist. Watching commuters transition from iPhones to Samsungs, and from paper books to Kindles, really gives one a sense of how the world is changing. Advertising is also a great way to measure society; seeing lots of adverts for dodgy loan companies can give you an interesting idea about the direction of the economy. I've been tracking the…
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Strolling along London's Southbank the other day, I came across one of those new-fangled information posts. Crudely stuck to it was a decidedly old-fashioned piece of paper bearing a planning notice. But! My my! What's that in the lower left corner? A QR code! Unsurprisingly, scanning the code takes you directly to the planning application on the web. Although the site isn't specifically…
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One of my hobbies is looking for QR codes by leafing through the free papers which blight the city of London. Yes, I lead a tragic existence, but it keeps me off the streets - so let me be, eh? Most of the QR codes that I see now are pretty good. They have clear explanatory text, point to mobile websites, and generally follow the Ten Commandments for QR codes. But, every so often I spot one…
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My first QR code post of 2013! I'm a long term fan of QR codes. I know some people don't like the idea of augmenting reality with specific tags for computer vision - but I do. Some people prefer RFID/NFC. Others still prefer dedicated augmented video apps. As I've written many times before, QR codes have several substantial advantages over alternate technologies. QR is a free and open…
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Wandering around the steets of London, I came across this excellent initiative from Camden Council on how to use QR codes on street furniture. If you see that a light - or anything else - is damaged, you can scan the QR code and report the issue. There's even a phone number and vanilla URL for those who aren't quite up to speed with new technology. There's only one slight issue - the QR code…
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I unashamedly love QR Codes. But every so often, I see one which makes me wonder if there should be some sort of licence for creating them :-) As I was walking around Camden the other day, I spotted this monstrosity. I figured with a code that dense, it probable contained a URL to a rubbish iPhone app, or perhaps a link stuffed full of tracking parameters. Still, what the heck, I scanned…
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Earlier this year, I blogged about seeing these QR codes appearing on some train tickets. The campaign itself wasn't that great - a poor call-to-action and a decidedly mobile-unfriendly site - but I was interested in how many people had scanned them. Thanks to bit.ly's practice of exposing everyone's statistics, we can see exactly how well this campaign did. Wow! Twenty-five thousand…
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Can you spot anything interesting on this poster? Yes, there in the corner - living in blissful harmony are a QR code and an NFC tag. There's an excellent call-to-action which even works for people without either a QR reader or NFC scanner. The destination is this mobile friendly landing page. Of course, you should still boycott Nestle due to their contributing to the unnecessary death…
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