QR Codes

QR Code (abbreviated from Quick Response Code) is the trademark for a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) first designed for the automotive industry. More recently, the system has become popular outside the industry due to its fast readability and large storage capacity compared to standard UPC barcodes. The code consists of black modules (square dots) arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be made up of four standardized kinds ("modes") of data (numeric, alphanumeric, byte/binary, Kanji), or through supported extensions, virtually any kind of data.

The QR Code was invented in Japan by the Toyota subsidiary Denso Wave in 1994 to track vehicles during the manufacturing process, and was originally designed to allow components to be scanned at high speed. It has since become one of the most popular types of two-dimensional barcodes.

Unlike the older one-dimensional barcode that was designed to be mechanically scanned by a narrow beam...

QR codes to generate 3D images on phones without internet

quick response (QR) codes – the box-shaped symbols that appear on signs and posters – may be used to securely display 3D images on your phone, even without involving the often-untrustworthy internet, scientists  say.

QR codes are a convenient and efficient way of accessing specific web pages with a smartphone or other mobile device. By adding an array of tiny lenses to an ordinary smartphone, a team of optical engineers from the University of Connecticut has found a way to securely display three-dimensional (3-D) images by simply scanning a series of QR codes – without ever accessing the Internet.

This data storage and display scheme could have exciting implications for personal 3-D entertainment, product visualisations for manufacturing and marketing, and secure 3-D data storage and transmission, researchers said. ”We have developed a method of using QR codes along with off-the-shelf mobile device technology such as smartphones to enable encrypted 3-D information to be securely displayed on mobile devices,” said Bahram Javidi, the project team leader and co-author on the paper. ”The QR codes we developed store compressed and encrypted images, which can be easily scanned, decrypted, and decompressed by commercial smartphones for secure 3-D visual communication,” said Javidi.

Through their research, the engineers also addressed an intrinsic security flaw with QR codes. Currently, if a link to a website is stored in the QR code, a smartphone will automatically link to that website and access the data stored there, but that website may contain malicious programming. ”In our proposed method, we store self-contained slices of data in the QR codes themselves. It’s then possible to receive and visualise 3-D images without using the Internet,” Javidi said. The process of storing and encoding the images is done by first selecting the primary image to be visualised. This could be either a single 3-D object, like a car or household object, or an entire 3-D scene.

The study was published in The Optical Society’s (OSA) journal Optica.By adding an array of tiny lenses to an ordinary smartphone, a team of optical engineers from the University of Connecticut has found a way to securely display three-dimensional (3D) images by simply scanning a series of QR codes — without ever accessing the internet.