Subscribe to Our Newsletter
What Are These Black Boxes?
They're called QR (Quick Response) codes. These are a new type of bar coding designed to be read by virtually any smartphone using their built in cameras along with software apps available for download to your phone or Ipad/Ipod devices.
The Toyota Corporation of Japan developed this system back in 1994 and while these codes have been in use in Japan for years, they have only recently begun to gain popularity here in the U.S.
But QR codes aren't just limited to being used to encode retail information about product pricing and item numbers, they can also be used to encode such things as email addresses, websites, computer programs, apps that can be downloaded to computer or phone, and contact information that can automatically be entered and saved in contact management software such as Outlook.
Folan Contracting Services has begun to use these codes on our correspondence to allow our customers easy access to our online data.
More information about QR codes can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code
The QR scanner apps can easily be found on the Apple App Store. A simple search for "QR Code Reader" will bring up a group of apps (mostly free) than can be downloaded to scan QR Codes.
A free QR Code Generator is available at www.qrstuff.com to allow you to create your own QR codes for your Websites, Facebook pages, etc...
