Posts tagged ‘matrix’
The QR in QR Code Means Quick Response
By Chad Upton | Editor
Although we typically use QR codes with our mobile phones, they were actually invented by a Japanese company (Denso) for tracking products during manufacturing. Even though they’ve been around since 1994, QR codes have only started to become popular in North America in the past few years. They’re also known as “matrix”, “2d” or “square” barcodes.
Traditional 1 dimensional barcodes are very limited in the amount of information they can store in a small space, generally an 8-24 digit number. The number in a traditional bar code is really only useful if you have a database or table where you can lookup that number to get more meaningful information, such as the price of the item at a grocery store. QR codes can contain a lot more data.
They’re called Quick Response codes because the data is in the code and it doesn’t have to be looked up in a table to be meaningful. For example, the QR code in this article contains a URL to another post on the blog related to bar codes. When you scan it with your phone’s QR app, your phone can decode the image into the URL, no remote lookup is required. QR codes can also be used to get text or send sms text messages and dial phone numbers.
