Microsoft Tags attracting commercial attention

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 17 September 2009 05:28

Opinion and Analysis

We've already got an open standard for QR Code, but Microsoft's plugging away with a proprietary alternative and some organisations are responding.

Why does Microsoft find it necessary to reinvent the wheel?

If you want a mechanism to connect print and online, we've already got one: it's called QR Code.

You've almost certainly seen a QR code, possibly in a newspaper or on outdoor advertising. They are the grids of black pixels, easily recognised by the concentric square patterns in three corners. (Telstra promotes them under the name Telstra Mobile Codes.)

Here's one for iTWire:



















The idea is that you take a photo of the QR code with the camera built into your mobile phone or other device, and then software (either in the device or delivered via a web service) decodes the information it contains. The whole process is likely to be wrapped up in a single application.

Typically, that'll be a URL, which is then opened in the device's browser.

Other types of information that can be included in a QR Code include calendar events, phone numbers, addresses (physical or email), geographical locations, or just plain text. More than 4000 alphanumeric characters can be stored in a QR Code.

QR Codes have been standardised by the ISO and IEC (ISO/IEC 18004:2006), and the original creator (Denso-Wave) has promised not to exert patent rights.

Various pieces of software implement the creation and reading of QR Codes

So if all this is already in place, what's with Microsoft Tags? See page 2.