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Hate to type on mobile phone! - Use QR Code!

I think it was back in 2004, when I visited my family in Japan, I found some weird looking barcode-like thingies everywhere on paper and magazines. They didn't look like the traditional barcodes with a bunch of vertical lines. I was stearing one as I was trying to figure out how to decode this cyptic message from outer space or something, then finally asked my brother. He was actually really surprised that I had no idea what they were.

Well, anyway what I saw was called QT code, a matrix code (2-D code) that contains info, mainly URLs of mobile websites. Use your camera phone and scan the barcode so you don't have to type them in with non-qwerty devices!

Now it is almost the end of 2006, here in the US, I finally have a chance to use the barcode with Nokia N93, which comes with a barcode reader software (and 3.2 megapixel camera!)

Then I wonder how I could adopt the QR code for own wap sites and googled it. Sweet enough I didn't have any difficulty to find some QR-code generators. The one I liked is qrcode.kaywa.com. The image below is the example I created on the website. This stored a URL for google's mobile site, google.mobi (I believe this is their new domain and slightly different from mobile.google.com. This site has UA detection.)

Related Sites and Articles:

• Wikipedia - QR Code
• Nokia N-Series
• Tommi's S60 Applications Blog - 2D Barcode Manifesto
• What Japan Thinks - QT Code Extremely Popular (Sept 2005)