qr – Andy Kinsella

Junkyard Jumbotron

A project which allows laptops or phones in close proximity to be ganged together to form a large display.

Developed by the MIT Center for Future Civic Media.

Waitrose using QR Codes on TV

Spotted this at the weekend. Waitrose are using a QR code on their Xmas TV ad.

It’s a nice idea, but I had to stop the Sky box, rewind the TV, press pause, get my iPhone out, open a QR code reader, then take a photo. (It didn’t work btw).

Who on earth is going to do that normally?

The ad doesn’t bother to explain what the box-barcode-thing is either.

Interesting to add a mobile CTA but needs work.

EDIT:

David Boddington (Technical Director of Mobile Marketing agency Movement) has written a much more detailed post covering LOTS of issues it raises. It’s worth a read.

http://blog.the-bods.co.uk/2010/11/waitrose-includes-qr-code-in-tv-ad.html

Microsoft Gets Into Mobile Tagging

At CES Microsoft introduced Microsoft Tag, a system that enables users to instantly access mobile content,, videos, music, contact information, maps, social networks, promotions, etc. simply by pointing the device’s camera to a custom tag.

If this makes you think of QR codes, you’re not the only one.

Like QR codes, Microsoft Tags are unique two-dimensial codes that can be used to open URLs or multimedia files. The big difference is the technology behind it.

Tags doesn’t actually store any information, except for a unique ID which can fetch more data stored on Microsoft servers. That’s how they allow more information to be “attached”.