WHILE QR codes have been in common use for some time now, this past year has seen a surge in their adoption - particularly with state governments initiative to track the movements of citizens in order to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Individuals and businesses are quickly realising the versatility of what is fundamentally a fairly basic technology, as the best ideas often are.
But what are the origins of the QR code, and who invented them?
What does a board game have to do with these fancy barcodes, anyway?
This week, I thought we’d take a look at the history of this nifty invention, and, as an added bonus, you can read this story online by scanning my very own QR code.
What are QR codes?
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QR or ‘Quick Response’ codes are a type of barcode that can be read easily by a digital device and which stores information as a series of pixels in a square-shaped grid.
QR codes are frequently used to track information about products in a supply chain and – because many smartphones have built-in QR readers – they are often used in marketing and advertising campaigns.
Standard barcodes can only be read in one direction – top to bottom.
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That means they can only store a small amount of information, usually in an alphanumeric format.
But a QR code is read in two directions – top to bottom and right to left. This allows it to house significantly more data.
The data stored in a QR code can include website URLs, phone numbers, or up to 4,000 characters of text.
QR codes can also be used to:
- Link directly to a website or download an app on the Apple App Store or Google Play.
- Authenticate online accounts and verify login details.
- Access Wi-Fi by storing encryption details such as SSID, password, and encryption type.
- Send and receive payment information.
- And much more – a company in the UK called QR Memories even creates QR codes for use on gravestones, allowing people to scan the code to read more about that deceased person’s life (if they have an obituary or news story relating to them online).
Who invented the QR code?
The technology was the brainchild of Hara Masahiro, an engineer at a manufacturing company called Denso in Japan.
Funnily enough, the inspiration of the design of the QR code came from the board game GO.
While his company had previously used barcodes to keep track of parts, the system was inefficient - requiring up to 10 barcodes to be scanned per box of components.
Employees would get tired of scanning so many barcodes, and so often parts would be misplaced or unaccounted for.
A better code was required, one that could hold more information, and thus the QR code was born.
Funnily enough, the inspiration of the design of the QR code came from the board game GO.
Those of you who are avid readers of mine might recall I have discussed this particular game at length before, describing the way artificial intelligence developers used GO to train computers capable of machine learning.
Comparing the typical board of a game of GO to a QR code, it becomes very obvious that it was the inspiration for the technology, as it bears an undeniable resemblance.
Hara was a great enthusiast for strategy games, and one day during his lunch break it struck him that the board’s near infinite amount of configurations represented a straightforward way to convey information.
And so, way back in 1994, the QR code was born.
