Grow Your Own 2-D Hardlinks

The other day I ran into this Instructable that shows you how to encode data into a 2-dimensional bar code for printing on pretty much anything from business cards to T-shirts. It also includes software you can load on your cellphone that will decode that bar code from a pic you snap of it.

The author suggests printing the bar codes in the QR Code format, which is a good choice for such applications. QR Code is a type of bar code originally developed for tracking parts during car manufacturing but has become popular, especially in Japan, for a practice known as hardlinking. Hardlinking is when you direct a user to a website from something in the real "hard" world. For example, let's say the new Hello Kitty movie poster has a 2D bar code on it under the text "Scan me to see the trailer!" Fans with bar code reading software on their cellphones take a picture of the bar code and process it with their software. The software then sends them directly to a URL embedded in the bar code which downloads and plays the trailer on their cellphone.

Since QR Code can hold up to 4,296 alphanumeric characters (that's more than twice the size of this post!) you don't even need to redirect the user to a website to give them the message you want. I'm thinking of having QR Codes added to my business cards with a message like, "Congratulations on your cleverness! Take this card into our office and tell us what it says and you'll get 20% off your next purchase." Some restaurants could even embed their entire menu into a single bar code. Instead of asking the hostess for a menu while you wait, you could just download it to your phone. Or, a QR Code could be displayed at a sports game that contains a player's detailed stats.

The possibilities are endless, so go check out this instructable and leave us a comment on to how you used (or would use) this innovative technology.

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