More than 1,300 Taiwanese people formed a human QR code in an event designed to promote the island to the world by cashing in on the rising use of smartphones which can read the barcodes.  QR codes are commonly used to direct users to websites, videos or social media sites.

Forming the QR code, highlighted by a blue word “Hi” in the middle, involved a total of 1,369 people carrying umbrellas on the square of the Taipei City Hall, organizers said.

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Barcodes are a common part of your everyday shopping experience or maybe even on your ID card to the gym, but they also can be found in public artworks.

SODO, created by California-based Merge Conceptual Design artists’ Claudia Reisenberger and Franka Diehnelt, is a visual narrative that catalogues more than 200 years of SoDo’s history. Created in partnership with the Seattle Department of Transportation, the artwork consists more than 500 painted columns as part of the Spokane Street Viaduct Widening Project.

Large stenciled and barcode designs adorn the concrete columns that hold up the existing and new portions of the Spokane Street Viaduct between Sixth Avenue South and East Marginal Way South. To distinguish and identify each theme within the artwork, the artists created their own unique barcodes encrypted with the name of each field for the project.

Contact us at BarcodesInc to find all the ways you can put barcodes to use.

Now a common place tool used at almost all levels of business, the barcode is now celebrating 60 years of use!

The now-ubiquitous patch was first patented in 1952. The first design, invented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver, resembled a circular bullseye. Originally created to help speed up the check out lines at a grocery store, they are now use to track almost anything.  Asset management, inventory, POS, and ID issuance are just some examples of processes that would be much more difficult with out the help of barcodes.

Today, 60 years after the barcode was first patented, there are more than 5 million individual barcodes in use around the world.  Oddly enough, one of the first retail products to use a barcode was Wrigley’g gum!  Through the years, many different types of codes have been developed, but none as popular and well-known as the UPC barcode, used on retail items, and the quickly advancing QR code you can scan with your smartphone.

Wherever you look you can find the barcode hard at work.  With advancements in scanner technology and more flexible barcode development, we’ll hopefully see another 60 years of barcodes!

The applications you can put QR Codes to use may range from coupons to advertising campaigns but this has got to be one of the more unique applications.

The New Zealand brewing company Yeastie Boys incorporate several QR Codes on the labeling of their Digital IPA.  These codes lead customers to various web pages including Facebook and Twitter accounts but one of the QR Codes lead to the full recipe of the beer, which essentially makes Digital IPA the world’s first open source beer!

If you are looking to incorporate 2D barcodes in your business and need help getting started, contact us at Barcodes Inc.

Many retailers experience a slow part of the day which can be a difficult challenge to solve.  Sometimes the best answer is engaging your customers in new and creative ways.

South Korea’s largest retailer, E-mart, was seeing a a large dip in daily business from 12pm to 1pm and came up with a novel way to get customers into stores.  They created a shadow QR code that was only scannable between 12pm and 1pm when the sun was in a position to cast the correct shape shadow.  When people would see these shadow QR codes outdoors they could use their smartphone to read them.  Once scanned, they are lead to a ‘Sunny Sale’ homepage with special offers, coupons and a download for the Emart ecommerce app.  This simple yet clever campaign helped increase Emart’s sale by 25% during their once difficult lunchtime slump. The campaign was conceived and managed by Cheil Worldwide who were also responsible for the virtual grocery store in Hangangjin subway station in Seoul.

Artist Scott Blake has a series of portraits completely made from scannable barcodes.  The images are of various cultural icons and are not just a simple print.
If you scan the codes in the portraits with a scanner or smartphone you can watch videos, listen to audio clips, and read up on the subjects in the image.

“I have made more than 30 large-scale digital portraits of cultural icons using actual barcodes connected to some aspect of their lives. My Barcode Elvis portrait is made with barcodes from his music CDs. Barcode Bruce Lee and Barcode Marilyn Monroe are comprised of barcodes from their movie DVDs. Barcode Oprah is made with the ISBN barcodes from her book club. Interact with my art. Move beyond form to function. Scan the barcodes with your smartphone. Hear, watch and read as my subjects tell their stories.” – Scott Blake

The German designer future company DRAENERT Studio sells an award winning modern dining striped table they call The Barcode Table.

Made of solid stone and steel, and “assembled, ground, and polished by masters of stone masonry”; I’m betting this is as heavy as it is expensive.

We need to get one of these for the office!

A stencil painting of a leopard that’s escaped from a barcode cage by secretive street artists Banksy is expected to reach up to $100,000 at auction later this month.

The 2002 painting was bought at Banksy’s Existencilism exhibition in Los Angeles, and has never been offered at auction before.

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Serious shoppers can use their smartphone’s camera for more than just snapping photos of the things they want to buy. With a barcode scanner app installed, the phone’s camera can be used to scan an item’s bar code (also known as the Universal Product Code). Once scanned, most apps present a list of places and prices the scanned item can be found, which makes comparison-shopping even easier on the go. RedLaser and PriceGrabber are two apps that offer iOS and Android versions, as does Pic2Shop, which also works on Windows Phone. Search your phone’s app store for others.

Another favorite is Google Shopper which is available for Android and iPhone.

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Nintendo has designed several unconventional attachments for their Wii Remote controller and their patent filings were recently unveiled. Two attachments make use of the Wii Remote’s infrared camera, which is normally used to detect the position of the sensor bar for position tracking.

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The second [patent] invention enables the Remote to read data off of printed cards like a crude e-Reader or barcode scanner. This device attaches in front of the infrared sensor. The device has a slot where a plate can be inserted, which activates infrared lights. This plate includes a vertical slot, which allows light to shine only through a small area. A card with a printed dot pattern can be slid through the guide slot, and the pattern is read one column at a time. Removing the plate allows the Remote to be used as a pointer without removing the entire apparatus.

This reminds me a little of the Barcode Battler from the early 90’s. Using the Wii Remote as a bluetooth barcode scanner is definitely clever, but I don’t think it’s going to put Motorola or Honeywell out of the barcode scanning business any time soon.

Source Nintendo Files for Wii Remote Infrared Add-on Patents