When seen with the naked eye, a QR code looks like a piece of modern art at best. But underneath is a hidden code that could take you to a website, give you contact information, a phone number, or even contain a secret message. Initially used by manufacturing companies to track products as they moved through the plant, it is now used by advertisers as a way to get you into their online presence as quickly and easily as taking a picture with your smartphone’s camera.
To read the code hidden within the small square of pixelated information, you need to download a QR scanner on your smartphone. There are several to choose from, so I won't go into anyone in particular, but you can search your smartphone's app store to find several that you can download and try.
Once you have downloaded and installed it on your phone, you are ready to start reading and discovering the hidden code within the Quick Response Code. The apps will use your smartphone's camera as an optical reader to take a photo of the code. Once your camera captures the image, the app will crack the code and display the results for you to read.
When you launch the barcode scanner on your smartphone, it will automatically activate your phone's camera. You'll see a framing guide on the screen to help you line up the code so the camera can read it. Align the camera with the quick response code you want to scan. Hold the smartphone until the app reads the code. You should see some random blinking dots on the screen, which means you're looking at the code to align it, read it, run a debugging program, and crack the code that displays the results.
Let's say the code is a website that you can select to open directly on your smartphone in a browser. It will take you directly to the website that was hidden in the code. If you have a tablet or similar device with a camera, you can download a QR code scanner to your device and get any quick response code right on your tablet. It's even possible with the right programs installed to connect your phone to your computer's USB port and place a QR code directly on your laptop or desktop computer.
Enjoy and have fun scanning QR Codes. These special codes can be read from a piece of paper, on a computer screen, or even from another smartphone. Anywhere you can get a clear read of the Quick Response Code. You never know what you might see in the back of a truck doing down the road. While I don't personally recommend trying to get a code while driving down the highway, I would recommend having a passenger do it for you.