The original barcode was invented in America. But the technology was improved in Japan.
For example…do they use the “Quick Response (QR) Barcode” in your country?
QR Code for "Wikipedia Japan" website's URL
The QR Barcode was invented in Japan and it can be read by cell-phones in Japan.
If you use your (Japanese) cell-phone to scan the code, you can access the website without typing the URL manually.
Can cell-phones in your country do this? Or is this used in Japan only? (The only cell-phones I’ve ever used were my phones here in Japan).
And also the “regular” barcode that is found on all sorts of consumer products has been improved by a Japanese company.
They proved that the barcode doesn’t have to be limited to the simple straight lines and numerals design that we’re all used to.
Here are a few examples of their work:
Tokyo Five 
i how are youand how is life go inahrhiwdgvfuej
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Thank you. I think.
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blackberry phones use the QR codes. I see them on some billboards in NYC now too
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Really? Have they become popular in America?
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They have lots of names “smart” and “3D”.
They are being used a lot in shipping/postage applications.
Using it to get to a website sounds similar in concept to the Google Goggles phone app that lets you take a picture and then it will search the web for websites that match the image.
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I think almost everything in life, even the internet, is done completely differently in Japan and America.
And the American way has become foreign to me! 😉
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The smart barcode is used quite a bit over here, but I haven’t heard of anyone using it to “embed” a URL.
Is it really that hard to type in a URL?
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>The smart barcode is used quite a bit over here
Are “QR Barcodes” called “Smart Barcodes” in America?
>but I haven’t heard of anyone using it to “embed” a URL.
Than what are they used for other there?
>Is it really that hard to type in a URL?
When you’re using a cell-phone, scanning a barcode can be faster than typing.
But the main reason is that in Japan (a non-English speaking country) typing URLs isn’t popular at all (even on computers) since they’re in alphabet letters.
Ads on train posters and in magazines that tell a company’s website address will almost always have a QR Code for the mobile site and they’ll tell what to search Yahoo! for to find the site rather than tell the URL.
For example, Coca-Cola might tell people to access their site by searching 「コカコーラ」 (Coca-Cola) which is easier for Japanese people to remember than spelling out cococola.co.jp
So…yes, a barcode is easier than typing a URL out.
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Ah, the barcode as art. I never thought I’d see the day. 🙂
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Neither did I.
I thought “barcode tattoos” were out there…but these take the lead.
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