A Brief History of the QR Code

When it emerged for commercial use just over ten years ago, the QR code was a curious sight to behold. A small black and white box, it contained chequerboard-like with small squares and seemed to be straight out of a science fiction movie. Yet this curious pattern would soon become insanely popular due to its many different uses. Below, we give the history of the QR code. 

QR Code Uses

Today you can find the QR code almost everywhere. When scanned with a smartphone, the image will supply a unique code, allowing for a multitude of use. People can make downloads with it or it can direct them to specific websites. This has been used to help grow different industries in different ways. 

As a consumer, you may have used them as a form of coupon. You scan the code and it brings up discounts for certain products. Many burgeoning entertainment industries, such as the online bingo niche, have used it for easy access to their services. One scan can quickly download bingo apps to the user’s device. If their details are stored on the phone, sign-up can be extremely quick and people can benefit from a range of bonuses in minutes. 

Yet the QR code was not initially intended to be used for so wide a purpose. Its primary function was to identify different automotive parts. 

The Inception of the QR Code

Masahiro Hara was the engineer responsible for the initial research and development. Working for the Denso Corporation in Japan, he noticed that many car parts placed in boxes had to be scanned using a series of barcodes. This caused a bottleneck in production and he sought a way to create a code that would allow them all to be scanned in one go. His influence came from the game of Go and the black and white stones placed on its board.

Of course, the biggest prior influence on this had to have been the barcode itself. This was also a Japanese invention, which was created so that cashiers in supermarkets did not have to punch the price of each item into a register individually. This helped bring about the point-of-sale checkout we know today, which displays the price of an item and the total so far. 

However, the limitations of a barcode were that it could only hold 20 characters of information. The QR code was a solution to the problem, allowing the inclusion of specific Japanese kanji and kana characters into the information as well. 

Development Problems

One of the biggest problems during development was how to read the code as fast as possible. This was solved by using directional information within the code. It also had to be able to read and translate the information from every angle. The solution was to add directional information in the form of large squares, which helped position the code. You can find these in the corners of all QR codes. 

Now, the code is found everywhere. No doubt you will have used one today, for internet security, payments, ticketing, and any other myriad uses. No doubt at some point, this will evolve even further, but for the foreseeable future, the QR code is here to stay.