Using Android and QR codes
From time to time you’ll see bar codes like the one above. Actually, it’s not a bar code. It’s called a QR code, and it’s used as a shortcut to link to content online using your phone’s camera, saving you from typing lengthy addresses into your mobile browser.
Although initially used for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing, QR Codes are now used in a much broader context, including both commercial tracking applications and convenience-oriented applications aimed at mobile phone users (known as mobile tagging). QR Codes can be used to display text to the user, to add a v Card contact to the user’s device, to open a URI or to compose a text message or email. Users can also generate and print their own QR Code for others to scan and use by visiting one of several free QR Code generating sites.
QR Codes storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards, or on just about any object about which users might need information. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader application can scan the image of the QR Code to display text, contact information, connect to a wireless network, or open a web page in the phone’s browser. This act of linking from physical world objects is known as a hard-link or physical world hyperlinks.
You’ll need an app that can read QR codes (we like Bar-code Reader or Google Goggles in the Android Market). When you see a QR code in an app review, hit it with the bar-code reader and it will take you to the download section in the Android Market. It’s that simple.
