More Yahoo QR Codes can be found here. It's interesting to note that both sky email and QR Codes are used, but not the web address (with the sole exception of the main domain).

* Kaywa is also using an SMS/QR Code approach (see PDF).


See also:
European Central Bank: QR-CODE of the link to Weekly schedule of public speaking engagements and other activities
QR Codes in Taiwan
Updated Eurotechnology QR-Code Report by Gerhard Fasol
Easy Web Access with QR Code (Softbank)

The above QR Code is for a 240×320 (QVGA）japanese phone. I can read the QR Code, but I can't download the flash application for phone incompatibility reasons. Over at La Rivière aux Canards you can see this photo of the skin:

Interesting how images travel. I just discovered our images from the Kaywa Reader on PingMag's interesting report Top 10 ad-tricks in Tokyo’s train stations. Found via adzilla which seems to be a pastiche frome the former PingMag article.

Seen today (7.2.2006) on Silicon.com:

The beauty of the QR code lies in doing what the manufacturers and operators seem to struggle with: making a mobile's user interface pain-free. With a cameraphone and the appropriate software, you can take a picture of a QR code, say on a poster advertising a cool new mobile phone and be taken directly to the mobile webpage of the handset's maker.

Or, for the businessperson about town, here's another application. You're given a business card with a QR code on it. Snap it and all the donor's details are instantly inputted into your phone. No mess, no fuss.

The Kaywa Reader is out in it's 1.32 version. The first Samsung phone - Samsung SGH-Z500 - is now also supported. Download at http://reader.kaywa.com

Nokia N73 and N80 are in signing process and will soon be out too.

You can find all the supported phones at: http://reader.kaywa.com/phones

Questions asked before creating our own barcode:

• Will clients accept to help us with our own proprietory code? Why should they?
• Is there a place for yet another code? Or are we too late for this?
• How will advertising companies react?
• How will operators react?
• How will handset manufacturers react?
• How will Google or Yahoo react?

After some time of thorough thinking the idea of a proprietary code was buried. And we went into the next round:

Questions asked before choosing an existing 2D Barcode:

• Which mobile 2D barcode is well specified and documented?
• Which mobile 2D barcode is an ISO-Standard (which garanties the above)?
• Which mobile 2D barcode produces the most results in Google and Technorati?
• Which mobile 2D barcode garanties interoperability?
• Which mobile 2D barcode offers scanners and other tools for coupons, ticketing etc.
• Which mobile 2D barcode has worldwide the biggest install base on mobile phones?
• Which mobile 2D barcode has some history?
• Which mobile 2D barcode is successful in different segments?
• Which mobile 2D barcode can offer the most examples in usage?
• Which mobile 2D barcode offers versatility, e.g. more than URL's?
• Which mobile 2D barcode can contain a SMS text (165 signs) and a Vcard?
• Which mobile 2D barcode can be as small as 10x10mm today?
• Which mobile 2D barcode is futureproof?
• And last but not least: Which mobile 2D barcode is so cool that architects, musicians, designers or fashion designers would like to work with it?

Finally two candidates remained: QR Code and Datamatrix, but the QR Code topped by far the Datamatrix code.

Mobile Communication in Everyday Life - Ethnographic Views, Observations and Reflections
By: Joachim R. Höflich, Maren Hartmann (Eds.)
Frank & Timme, 2006
Table of Contents

Mobile Communication in Everyday Life takes a closer look at the mobile phone as an object of inquiry in the tradition of the so-called media ethnography. Consequently, the benefits and limitations of such research designs are the focus of the book. Some contributions focus on the tension between private and public communication, others on cultural dimensions.

Extract from Virpi Oksman's Mobile Visuality and Everyday Life in Finland: An Ethnographic Approach to Social Uses of Mobile Image

In recent years, as camera phones and digital cameras have become more common, sending visual messages has become increasingly easy. Visual communication is used most importantly between members of the immediate circle: MMS creates closeness between friends and family members and adds emotion to the communication; messages are often humorous and they function to maintain and enforce relationships and social bonds. Mobile visual communication has become one means of communication to complement the more traditional ways of keeping contact. For instance the news about the arrival of a baby or a new pet is delivered immediately through MMS, whereas before sending photographs in a letter was perhaps the most commonly used method.

[...] Photos are mailed only to intimates such as a lover, a spouse or a very close friend. Decisions about sending an image or what kind of a photo to send are made based on social relationships (Okabe, 2004:10). Van House identified four traditional uses of photos:

• constructing a personal
• and group memory;
• creating and maintaining relationships; and
• self-presentation. On the basis of camera phone studies, a fifth category was also identified:
• functional images.

From their data, the researchers concluded that camera phone use encourages experimentation with a more expressive use of images (Van House, 2004:3). Kindberg et al. (2005:46) observed in their study that the most common reason for capturing a mobile image was to enrich mutual experience by sharing an image with those who were co-present at the time.

Authors with Websites/Blogs:
Lee Humphreys
Mimi Ito
Bella Ellwood-Clayton
Richard Ling
Santiago Lorente
Richard Harper
Steve Hodges
Friedrich Krotz

Awesome!!!

European Central Bank with QR Code

QR Code for link to daily rates



via Live in a Click! and originally Gerhard Fasol