QR code (abbreviated from
Quick Response Code) is the trademark for a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) first designed for the automotive industry in Japan.
A barcode is an optically machine-readable label that is attached to an
item and that records information related to that item. The information
encoded by a QR code may be made up of four standardized types
("modes") of data (numeric, alphanumeric, byte / binary, Kanji) or, through supported extensions, virtually any type of data.
The QR Code system has become popular outside the automotive industry
due to its fast readability and greater storage capacity compared to
standard UPC barcodes.
Applications include product tracking, item identification, time
tracking, document management, general marketing, and much more.
A QR code consists of black modules (square dots) arranged in a
square grid on a white background, which can be read by an imaging
device (such as a camera) and processed using Reed-Solomon
error correction until the image can be appropriately interpreted; data
is then extracted from patterns present in both horizontal and vertical
components of the image.
Invention
The QR code system was invented in 1994 by Toyota's subsidiary, Denso Wave. Its purpose was to track vehicles during manufacture; it was designed to allow high-speed component scanning. It has since become one of the most popular types of two-dimensional barcodes.
Standards
There are several standards that cover the encoding of data as QR codes:
- 1 September 2006 – ISO/IEC 18004:2006 Information technology – Automatic identification and data capture techniques – QR code 2005 bar code symbology specification
Defines QR code 2005 symbols, an extension of QR code model 2. Does not
specify how to read QR code model 1 symbols, or require this for
compliance.
At the application layer, there is some variation between most of the implementations. Japan's NTT DoCoMo has established de facto standards for the encoding of URLs, contact information, and several other data types. The open-source "ZXing" project maintains a list of QR code data types.
Uses
Originally designed for industrial uses, QR codes have become common in consumer advertising. Typically, a smartphone is used as a QR-code scanner, displaying the code and converting it to some useful form (such as a standard URL for a website, thereby obviating the need for a user to type it manually into a web browser).
"In
the shopping industry, knowing what causes the consumers to be
motivated when approaching products by the use of QR codes, advertisers
and marketers can use the behavior of scanning to get consumers to buy,
causing it to have the best impact on ad and marketing design." As a result, the QR code has become a focus of advertising strategy, since it provides quick and effortless access to the brand's website.
Beyond mere convenience to the consumer, the importance of this capability is that it increases the conversion rate
(that is, increases the chance that contact with the advertisement will
convert to a sale), by coaxing qualified prospects further down the conversion funnel
without any delay or effort, bringing the viewer to the advertiser's
site immediately, where a longer and more targeted sales pitch may
continue.
Although initially used to track parts in vehicle manufacturing, QR codes are now (as of 2012)
used over a much wider range of applications, including commercial
tracking, entertainment and transport ticketing, product/loyalty
marketing (examples: mobile couponing where a company's discounted and
percent discount can be captured using a QR code decoder which is a
mobile app, or storing a company's information such as address and
related information alongside its alpha-numeric text data as can be seen
in Yellow Pages directory), and in-store product labeling. It can also
be used in storing personal information for use by government. An
example of this is Philippines National Bureau of Investigation (NBI)
where NBI clearances now come with a QR code. Many of these applications
target mobile-phone users (via mobile tagging). Users may receive text, add a vCard contact to their device, open a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), or compose an e-mail
or text message after scanning QR codes. They can generate and print
their own QR codes for others to scan and use by visiting one of several
pay or free QR code-generating sites or apps. Google had a popular API to generate QR codes, and apps for scanning QR codes can be found on nearly all smartphone devices.
QR codes storing addresses and Uniform Resource Locators
(URLs) may appear in magazines, on signs, on buses, on business cards,
or on almost any object about which users might need information. Users
with a camera phone
equipped with the correct reader application can scan the image of the
QR code to display text, contact information, connect to a wireless network, or open a web page in the telephone's browser. This act of linking from physical world objects is termed hardlinking or object hyperlinking.
QR codes also may be linked to a location to track where a code has
been scanned. Either the application that scans the QR code retrieves
the geo information by using GPS and cell tower triangulation (aGPS) or
the URL encoded in the QR code itself is associated with a location.
Mobile operating systems
QR codes can be used in Google's Android, BlackBerry OS and Apple iOS devices (iPhone/iPod/iPad), as well as Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system, Google Goggles, 3rd party barcode scanners, and the Nintendo 3DS. The browser supports URL redirection, which allows QR codes to send metadata to existing applications on the device. mbarcode is a QR code reader for the Maemo
operating system. In Apple's iOS, a QR code reader is not natively
included, but more than fifty paid and free apps are available with both
the ability to scan the codes and hard-link to an external URL. Google Goggles is an example of one of many applications that can scan and hard-link URLs for iOS and Android. BlackBerry 10 devices have a native QR reader as well as several third party readers. Windows Phone 7.5 is able to scan QR codes through the Bing search app.
URLs
URLs aided marketing conversion rates
even in the pre-smartphone era but during those years faced several
limitations: ad viewers usually had to type the URL and often did not
have a web browser in front of them at the moment they viewed the ad.
The chances were high that they would forget to visit the site later,
not bother to type a URL, or forget what URL to type. Friendly URLs
decreased these risks but did not eliminate them. Some of these
disadvantages to URL conversion rates are fading away now that
smartphones are putting web access and voice recognition in constant
reach. Thus an advert viewer need only reach for his or her phone and
speak the URL, at the moment of ad contact, rather than remember to type
it into a PC later.
Virtual stores
During the month of June 2011, according to one study, 14 million
mobile users scanned a QR code or a barcode. Some 58% of those users
scanned a QR or barcode from their homes, while 39% scanned from retail
stores; 53% of the 14 million users were men between the ages of 18 and
34. The use of QR codes for "virtual store" formats started in South Korea, and Argentina, but is currently expanding globally. Big companies such as Walmart, Procter & Gamble and Woolworths have already adopted the Virtual Store concept.
Code payments
QR codes can be used to store bank account information or credit card
information, or they can be specifically designed to work with
particular payment provider applications. There are several trial
applications of QR code payments across the world.
In November 2012, QR code payments were deployed on a larger scale in the Czech Republic when an open format for payment information exchange - a Short Payment Descriptor - was introduced and endorsed by the Czech Banking Association as the official local solution for QR payments.
Website login
QR codes can be used to log in into websites: a QR Code is shown on
the login page on a computer screen, and when a registered user scans it
with a verified smartphone, they will automatically be logged in on the
computer. Authentication is performed by the smartphone which contacts
the server. Google tested such a login method in January 2012.
Design
Unlike the older, one-dimensional barcode that was designed to be
mechanically scanned by a narrow beam of light, a QR code is detected by
a 2-dimensional digital image sensor
and then digitally analyzed by a programmed processor. The processor
locates the three distinctive squares at the corners of the QR code
image, using a smaller square (or multiple squares) near the fourth
corner to normalize the image for size, orientation, and angle of
viewing. The small dots throughout the QR code are then converted to
binary numbers and validated with an error-correcting code.
Storage
The amount of data that can be stored in the QR code symbol depends on the datatype (
mode, or input character set), version (1, …, 40, indicating the overall dimensions of the symbol), and error correction level. The maximum storage capacities occur for 40-L symbols (version 40, error correction level L)
Encryption
Encrypted QR codes, which are not very common, have a few implementations. An Android app, for example, manages encryption and decryption of QR codes using the DES algorithm (56 bits). The Japanese immigration system uses encrypted QR codes when issuing visa in passports as shown in the figure here.
Error correction
Codewords are 8 bits long and use the Reed–Solomon error correction
algorithm with four error correction levels. The higher the error
correction level, the less storage capacity. The following table lists
the approximate error correction capability at each of the four levels:
| Level L (Low) |
7% of codewords can be restored. |
| Level M (Medium) |
15% of codewords can be restored. |
| Level Q (Quartile) |
25% of codewords can be restored. |
| Level H (High) |
30% of codewords can be restored. |
In larger QR symbols, the message is broken up into several
Reed–Solomon code blocks. The block size is chosen so that at most 15
errors can be corrected in each block; this limits the complexity of the
decoding algorithm. The code blocks are then interleaved together,
making it less likely that localized damage to a QR symbol will
overwhelm the capacity of any single block.
Thanks to error correction, it is possible to create artistic QR
codes that still scan correctly, but contain intentional errors to make
them more readable or attractive to the human eye, as well as to
incorporate colors, logos, and other features into the QR code block.
Encoding
The format information records two things: the error correction level
and the mask pattern used for the symbol. Masking is used to break up
patterns in the data area that might confuse a scanner, such as large
blank areas or misleading features that look like the locator marks. The
mask patterns are defined on a grid that is repeated as necessary to
cover the whole symbol. Modules corresponding to the dark areas of the
mask are inverted. The format information is protected from errors with a
BCH code, and two complete copies are included in each QR symbol.
The message data is placed from right to left in a zigzag pattern, as
shown below. In larger symbols, this is complicated by the presence of
the alignment patterns and the use of multiple interleaved
error-correction blocks.
License
The use of QR codes is free of any license. The QR code is clearly defined and published as an ISO standard.
Denso Wave owns the patent rights on QR codes, but has chosen not to exercise them. In the USA, the granted QR code patent is US 5726435, and in Japan JP 2938338. The European Patent Office granted patent "EPO 0672994".
to Denso Wave, which was then validated into French, UK, and German
patents, all of which are still in force as of November 2011.
The word QR code itself is a registered trademark of Denso Wave Incorporated. In UK, the trademark is registered as E921775, the word "QR Code", with a filing date of 03/09/1998. The UK version of the trademark is based on the Kabushiki Kaisha Denso
(DENSO CORPORATION) trademark, filed as Trademark 000921775, the word
"QR Code", on 03/09/1998 and registered on 6/12/1999 with the European
Union OHIM (Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market). The U.S. Trademark for the word "QR Code" is Trademark 2435991 and was
filed on 29 September 1998 with an amended registration date of 13 March
2001, assigned to Denso Corporation.
Risks
Malicious QR codes combined with a permissive reader can put a
computer's contents and user's privacy at risk. This practice is known
as "attagging", a portmanteau of "attack tagging". They are easily created and can be affixed over legitimate QR codes. On a smartphone, the reader's permissions may allow use of the camera, full Internet access, read/write contact data, GPS, read browser history, read/write local storage, and global system changes.
Risks include linking to dangerous web sites with browser exploits,
enabling the microphone/camera/GPS, and then streaming those feeds to a
remote server, analysis of sensitive data (passwords, files, contacts,
transactions), and sending email/SMS/IM messages or DDOS packets as part of a botnet, corrupting privacy settings, stealing identity, and even containing malicious logic themselves such as JavaScript or a virus. These actions could occur in the background while the user is only seeing the reader opening a seemingly harmless web page. In Russia, a malicious QR code caused phones that scanned it to send premium texts at a fee of US$6 each
