How a Board Game and
Skyscrapers Inspired the Development of the QR Code
What is QR Code?
Quick Response code, better known as QR code, is a type of matrix barcode first designed in 1994 for the automotive industry in Japan. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that contains information about the item to which it is attached.Using a combination of spacing as a type of Matrix Barcode (a 2-D Barcode), when a QR Code is scanned, it conveys a wide multitude of information. The information stored in a QR Code is usually URLs, but anything can be stored, from contact data to calendar data, email addresses, phone numbers, SMS opening, plain text and geolocation.
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QR code inventors Masahiro Hara [right] of Denso and Takayuki Nagaya of Toyota Central R&D Labs, both located in Aichi, JapanAdd caption |
Recent QR
Code Usage Growth
Not only are consumers more accustomed to scanning QR codes generally, they are now
more likely to scan a QR code more than once. This all
adds to a 28% growth in
total QR reach over the
same 2018-2019 time period.
The answer is yes. Most smartphones come with a
native QR Code scanner in
their cameras. QR Codes are
hugely popular amongst businesses and age groups of all kinds. Not just
that, QR Codes are used to
track campaigns, increase brand awareness, divulge a product's detailed
information, and use it to generate a high ROI.
QR codes are used
for a variety of applications, including making contactless credit card
purchases and scanning airline boarding passes. They have become even more
popular during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many restaurants are displaying QR codes
that allow customers to pull up the eatery’s menu on their phone, allowing them
to avoid touching physical menus.
A QR
code can carry up to some hundred times the amount of information a
conventional barcode is capable of. When comparing the display of both: a conventional barcode can take up to ten times the amount of printing space as
a QR code carrying the same amount of information.
Developing the QR code:
Hara, one of the company engineers was inspired by the board game Go, according to the NHK episode. In the game, pieces are placed at intersections on the board. Even if the pieces are a little off the intersection, the players still know where the pieces are. Hara applied the idea to the QR code. The pixelated parts on a QR code are doubled so that if some are damaged, others can make up for them.
Board Game Go V/S QR Code
When the team began testing its new code with a UPC scanner, the device could not read code. The text surrounding the code interfered with the scanning. Hara had to find a solution because the text was necessary to identify the car parts.
He
found his answer one morning while riding a train to work.
“I
was just looking out the window when I noticed a tall building standing out
from its surroundings,” Hara said in an interview with NHK World-Japan for the
episode on QR codes. “That scene stuck with me, and I realized the code, too,
needed a special symbol—something to make it stand out from the surrounding
text.”
While experimenting with different frames around the code, Hara and his team tried different black-to-white ratios (the widths of the contrasting areas), trying to make one unusual enough to stand out. The team created a database of black-to-white ratios by scanning images from newspapers, then developed software that would analyze the data. After three months, Hara found the ratio of black to white needed for the QR code was 1:1:3:1:1, according to the TV show, and created a box using that ratio. The box was placed on each corner of the QR code—which allowed the scanner to successfully read it.
Denso
was granted a U.S. patent in 1998, a Japanese patent in 1999, and a
European patent in 2000. The QR code was given the ISO standard 18004:2015
in 2000.
Thus
developed the QR code which finds it’s an application in our day to day life
making many things easier like cashless payment, saving any details quickly or
even getting access to hotel WiFi by just a scan..
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