Have you seen one of these around and didn’t know what it is?

It’s a QR code. ‘QR’ stands for quick response. And they’re a really useful little widget for smart phone users.

They were developed in the 1990′s by the automotive industry for tracking automotive parts, but in the last couple of years have popped up all over the place – magazine advertisements, billboards, business cards. In fact, they’ve been common in Japan and South Korea for a good 6 years now.

Basically you’re looking at encoded text. On your phone you open up a QR code scanning app, point your camera at the code, and voilà, whatever information is encoded in the graphic is now available to you in English (or whatever language it is encoded in it). Like a barcode reader only better.

For example, scan the bar code in this post and you’ll be taken to a post on one of my other sites – that’s all it is, a URL. Of course, you wouldn’t bother doing that on a computer because you can click the link (this image is clickable by the way), but if this was on a poster and you were down town, then you could snap it with your phone and visit the web address which, if the marketers have earned their shekels, will involve a really cool competition or free give away.

Or someone hands you a business card and instead of manually entering their information you just scan the code on the back (because they’re really geeky like that) and up pops their information ready for you to import into your address book. Or you’re new in town looking for a church and see one in your neighbourhood. You notice on the sign a big QR Code so instead of going home and googling it you pull out your smart phone, snap the code and get the information there and then (some churches are doing that). The possibilities are endless.

I really hope they take off because, as a user; I like that it’s easier to scan than to enter text. And you’re never quite sure what you’re going to get. Usually it’s pretty boring. But hey, it’s new technology.

Are they safe? Pretty much. It’s just text and they can’t upload malicious code, although it could direct you to a dodgy website and entice you to click on a malicious link. But you get emails like that every week – just don’t click.

So what do you need to use them? A web enabled smart phone with a camera. And a scanning app.

Update: i-nigma is very fast and accurate, and cross platform. Website here.

I use Scan on my iPhone 3GS. Get it here. It’s very easy to use. Just open the app and point the phone’s camera at the code.

Try this for Android . I can’t vouch for it as I’ve never used Android.

Let me know if you’ve found better or how you’ve found using them.