Encoding the world

In the near future, QR codes will become humanized.

By ADAM GONN
codes qr (photo credit: © DR)
codes qr
(photo credit: © DR)
To view the complete article, click here, accessible to Premium Zone subscribers
Over the past couple of years, QR codes – those little boxes of black and white squares that appear in newspapers and print ads – have become an easy way for companies or advertisers to draw traffic to a website without visitors having to enter its address.
You simply point your smartphone at the box and let technology do the rest.
While practical, the QR code isn’t always visually appealing, and it tends to stand out from an image rather than being a part of it. But the Israeli start-up Visualead (www.visualead.com) says their new technology allows a designer to create an image that is both attractive and effective.
Ari Fuld, community and content manager at Visualead, tells The Jerusalem Report that the goal of the company is “to take QR codes that are really designed by machines, and make them human. So instead of scanning the black and white QR code, you are going to scan a Facebook site, a Twitter sign or a restaurant logo.”
To simply cut and paste a QR code doesn’t work because the code is made so that QR code readers, usually a smartphone camera, can understand it; and each code is uniquely created to do a specific task, either bringing the user to a website or to show a short video commercial of a product. According to Fuld, Visualead has developed a number of algorithms that take into account complaints that people have been having with QR codes. “We merged the functionality of the QR codes with the creativity of the design, which we are sure will boost interaction,” he asserts.
Until now the main problem with a QR code has been the need for a white trim around the black and white squares that make up the actual code, causing it to stand out from the rest of the image.
For more in-depth reporting and insight from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World subscribe to The Jerusalem Report.