Monday 26 April 2010

Square barcode showing on screens at Tesco.com HQ today


UPDATE 11 December 2017:

In an interesting twist, this very barcode is used in an epsiode of the ITV detective drama 'Midsomer Murders' called 'Murder By Magic'.


In the police station, a wall of photographs of the suspects in a murder have QR codes attached to them:


As our detectives discuss one particular suspect, the camera zooms in on his photograph:


An eagle-eyed viewer, watching the show in Germany in HD on movie channel ZDF NEO, paused the show and captured the QR code - and was sent straight to this page!

So welcome to you if you've followed the same path. Oh, and let me point out that English villages are very pleasant and peaceful places. They certainly do not have the murder rate that Midsomer has!

Anyway, I return you to 2010:
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Well done if you've arrived here from decoding the square 'QR' barcode square I put up on all the media screens at Tesco.com HQ in Falcon Way today. The text data in the barcode (recreated above) points to the direct web address of this blog post.

I wanted to see how many people 1) noticed and 2) decided to see if they could decode it. If it works, this means that people are taking notice of these barcode squares and acting on them. I'll work out what that means later!

I used the QR barcode generator web page at http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ to make the barcode, used my Mac's "snapshot" feature to take an image of the barcode, uploaded it to the screens then tested it on my iPhone using the app "Barcode" by Stefan Hafeneger.

Email me or comment on this post if you did decode the barcode and let me know how you did it (e.g. an mobile phone app?).

Here's how it looks on one of the media screens set up throughout Tesco.com HQ (click for bigger picture):




UPDATE: Colleague Dave caught taking a photo of the barcode displaying on one of the screens (I asked for his permission to put it in the public domain afterwards!). Click image for larger picture.

12 comments:

  1. Hi Nick - yes did it at 12:20 - Am I the the first? Where's the prize :)
    Steve (B).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well I saw your tweet and clicked on the link, saw the picture however did not have anything to decode it with so guessed there would be something on your blog so popped along to read this post... I am not installing the barcode app you mentioned to my iPhone so I am better prepared next time!!!!!!

    James

    ReplyDelete
  3. Can here from an Android (Nexus One) phone using one (zxing) of the multitude of free barcode apps.


    Tesco not showing Android any love at all makes little green androids cry.

    ScaredyCat

    ReplyDelete
  4. ScaredyCat - wait it out, things will come.

    Nick, I arrived here after scanning my laptop screen with my HTC Magic. I was actually reading the techfortesco forum on Friday & the QR Code threads, interesting stuff & I have great ideas but need to learn the code first to put it in practice!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Interesting... I arrived here after someone tweeted about it, scanned barcode via i-nigma app on iPhone.
    Interesting idea though, I just think that QR codes still aren't quite well known enough by the masses (apart from us geeky/mobile types!)

    ReplyDelete
  6. got it cracked through iphone app using 2dcodeme.. waiting for the next... nick

    ReplyDelete
  7. I was googling images of barcodes and scanned yours with my HTC hero using shop savvy. It came up on the 33rd page after searching "barcode"

    ReplyDelete
  8. What can these barcodes do? I would like to learn and see if I can use it. Pl email response / guide / guidance to nevemin0@yahoo.com. THX

    ReplyDelete
  9. I googled "square barcode" to try out my new iPad scanner. This code came up in google images..

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hey, I found this code on the interweb exactly one year ago yesterday. I saved the image to my computer and just felt like scanning it. So, what's the point if this?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Now I write my comment the third time, because this comment Box have some dysfunctions!

    In the Episode (German title, movie from 2016!) "Mord mit Magie" of "Inspector Barnaby", today broadcasted by "ZDF neo" in HD Quality, it was easy to Scan from TV Screen. The QRCs Sticked on Photos at Police office.
    I was surprised that there encoded a real URL!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Matthias - do you have a screen shot from that TV show you could send me? It would be great to update this post to show it! I'm Nick at Lansley dot Com - many thanks!

      Delete

As this blog grows in readership - and because it carries the Tesco brand - I have had to become more careful about the sort of comments that are acceptable. The good news is that I'm a champion of free speech so please be as praising or as critical as you wish! The only comments I DON'T allow through are:

1. Comments which criticise an individual other than myself, or are critical of an organisation other than Tesco. This is simply because they cannot defend themselves so is unfair and possibly libellous. Comments about some aspect of Tesco being better/worse than another equivalent organisation are allowed as long as you start by saying "in my personal opinion.." or "I think that...". ... followed by a "...because.." and some reasoned argument.

2. Comments which are totally unrelated to the context of the original article. If I have written about a mobile app and you start complaining about the price of potatoes then your comment isn't going stay for long!

3. Advertising / web links / spam.

4. Insulting / obscene messages.


Ok, rules done - now it's your go: