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By Jo Best, 6 February 2007 15:50

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Ever heard of QR codes? No? Neither have many other people in the UK, apparently. Jo Best explains all about the many uses of this quirky mobile tech from - where else - Japan.

In the last Upwardly Mobile column, I called for smarter use of cameraphones - more business applications, less taking drunk pictures of your mates.

As usual it seems the cradle of mobile civilisation, Japan, has found and deployed a system to take advantage of cameraphones which is being embraced by retailers and consumers alike. It's called 'QR codes'.

A QR code is somewhat like a barcode in functionality and resembles a 2D Rubik's Cube or mixed-up chessboard - there's a photo of one at the foot of this column. They're usually about the size of a postage stamp - but can be bigger or smaller - yet at such a size they can still carry many times more data than a traditional barcode.

'So what?', you might be thinking. 'I don't work on a supermarket checkout. What good is a barcode-like technology to me?' Granted, QR codes can be and are used where barcodes are now but they are also used by consumers and for business, with mobile phones now coming equipped with software that can translate the code into words.

The beauty of the QR code lies in doing what the manufacturers and operators seem to struggle with: making a mobile's user interface pain-free. With a cameraphone and the appropriate software, you can take a picture of a QR code, say on a poster advertising a cool new mobile phone and be taken directly to the mobile webpage of the handset's maker.

Or, for the businessperson about town, here's another application. You're given a business card with a QR code on it. Snap it and all the donor's details are instantly inputted into your phone. No mess, no fuss.

McDonald's has also employed QR technology in a rather ingenious way. The Big Mac purveyor prints a code on its burger wrappers which allows the health conscious or curious to view the food's nutritional info on a phone.

On the face of it, it's a pleasingly simple piece of kit and there are plenty of free apps in the wild for converting QR codes into English, and for creating the codes themselves.

So why isn't the QR code taking off in the UK? I'm stumped. After all, it's not like NFC where vast numbers of disparate interests must be brought together and forced to agree on how to roll out a technology. It's not seemingly costly to roll out either - another reason why mobile services often stumble.

Could it be that not enough of us have cameraphones or smart phones? I'm not convinced.

Or is it just a question of awareness? Perhaps the mobile users of the UK simply don't know about this dinky little invention. I fear it could be so. Maybe industry types can't see the money to be made yet, when so much of QR culture is free.

Here's a QR code below. If you download some QR reading software onto your mobile, you should be able to take a snap and convert the code into text - and read my 'secret' message to you.

Before I conclude, I'd also like to throw in a reference to the inaugural Upwardly Mobile column, about Nokia's Jan Chipchase, Uganda and its Sente system. In a recent post on Chipchase's blog, he gives insight into another clever mobile initiative he witnessed on a recent trip to the country.

Uganda is having serious problems with electricity supply and phone batteries dying. Local entrepreneurs have cottoned on and come up with some fascinating ways of dealing with the problems - such as setting up roadside recharging points. You can read more about them here. Necessity truly is the mother of invention.