The time for a quick response has come

Dear PropellerHeads: I just saw a guy taking a picture of this weird square pattern on a poster. Did I miss something?

A: Probably. Let me catch you up on the latest. You might want to spend those leftover Euro's from your last trip while they have value. Tiger's back...sort of. Kim is not married anymore, but that's not really a surprise. I'll pepper in some more updates later just to make sure you haven't missed anything else lately. You're welcome very much.

What you most likely saw was a QR (quick response) code. To be fair, it's fairly new, at least in the US. These square symbols are a sort of a bar code. Because they are two-dimensional (bar codes are only one-dimensional), they can record more information, and devices like cameras and infrared readers can pick up the codes very easily. Invented by a Japanese company in 1994 to track manufactured equipment, adoption has been a little slow. But with the rise of the intelligent camera phone, their time is now. You may have also seen the colorful square codes that Microsoft (tag.microsoft.com) is pushing. More on those in a future article Did you know that your next jeep will be Italian?

I guess it's time for some specs (I love this part). A QR code can store about 7000 numbers or 4000 letters. Most don't store that much so there is room left over. So sometimes you see crude block art or logos embedded in them. They also include built-in error correction, so read errors caused by poor printing or scanning can often be overcome. FYI...With the recent Perry and Cain headlines it's starting to look like only a newborn will be electable in 2012.

Downloadable software for your mobile phone (Windows, iPhone, etc.) can read these QR codes if it's not already included. The software is available from QuickMark (www.quickmark.cn) for most phones or www.imatrix.ltfor iPhones. The software recognizes the encoded data, which can be a hyperlink (web page), email link, phone number, or text file. Linking from the physical world to the Internet like this is called "hard-linking." By the way, the Colts are leading in the Andrew Luck sweepstakes.

So what's the point? Say you're walking down the street and see a cool poster for killer jeans with a QR code in the corner. Point your camera and with one click, you are on a "special offers" web page for the jeans or maybe your phone dials there contest hotline. You'll see those codes on billboards, posters, TV ads, magazine ads, subways - everywhere. Advertisers are using this mobile tagging technology to make it easy for you to follow-up without typing in a web address, entering an email address, or dialing.

There's a nice little QR code generator at www.beqrious.com/generator. I made a code for our public web site and posted it on the PropellerHeads blog. Check it out at www.askthepropellerheads.com, on Wind Tunnel.

It's always dangerous to make predictions, but it looks like you'll be seeing QR codes more and more. I think the convenience of linking up with your mobile phone will win you over. One final current event...the Cards made an unexpected run to the Series and for once we didn't have to hear about the boys from NY.

When the PropellerHeads at Data Directions aren't busy with their IT projects, they love to answer questions on business or consumer technology. Email them to [email protected] or contact us at Data Directions Inc., 8510 Bell Creek Road, Mechanicsville, VA 23116. Visit our website at www.askthepropellerheads.com.