Thu, 07 Feb 2008
QR Code on a Business Card
It seems more and more phones are able to read the "2-dimensional bar codes", such as QR Code. While these codes have a widespread use mainly in Japan, they will probably become popular here as well. I have been thinking about puting one to my business card (actually, Mirka was the one who got the idea first).
The problem is that there apparently is no standard way of formatting
contact data in the QR code. All readers I have seen so far
handle them as plain text, searching for embedded phone numbers and URLs the
same way as they do when displaying any other plain text data
(like SMS messages).
For example, the qrcode.kaywa.com
generator allows to create codes for URLs, phone numbers, or plain text.
However, the code for an URL looks exactly the same as an equivalent code
for plain text with that URL, and the code for a phone number is the same
as the code of the "TEL:that_phone_number" plain text string.
I have not found how to encode the information "the phone number of Kasprzak, Jan is +420123456789" in a way which the scanner inside the phone can understand (i.e. by adding the contact to the phonebook, including my long-and-complicated surname). Does my lazyweb know how to do this?