I just got a cell phone with a camera (yeah, yeah, I know…). I went online to purchase a theme for it, and on the website there was a black icon-like square with pixels-- y’all know what I’m talking about. I’m supposed to photograph it with my phone or something…? How does that work exactly? If there’s a charge involved, how do I get charged? Thanks.
You take a picture of it, and your phone’s computer translates the pixellated image into a text string. The text string is probably (but doesn’t need to be) a URL, in which case your phone will give you the option of going to that page in your phone’s browser. What happens after that depends on what’s on the page: Presumably, it’ll have a form for entering your credit card number, like any other webpage that’s selling something.
those are QR codes, a certain type of 2D barcode. You need an app on your phone that can read barcodes/QR codes, and use the app to take a photo of it. Then it’ll either take you to where it links to, or show you first.
ETA: most of the time they’re just links; the ones I’ve bothered to try were either links to web pages, links to YouTube videos, or links to apps in the Android Market.
On my phone there is an app for the QR codes “barcode scanner”. I have to use that app. Not the same thing I use to take pictures. What phone do you have?
Yeah, what phone? It’s entirely possible that it won’t work with yours.
Another use, which I’ve never seen anyone but myself do, is encoding a block of text. I write a lot of scripts for Android phones and, if they’re small enough for a QR code, I try to include one on my blog. The Android Barcode Scanner has a setting to automatically copy the text to the clipboard from the QR code, so it ends up being the fastest way to get a chunk of text from the web to the phone. I think this is such a seldom used trick that most QR readers don’t even include blank lines when encoding text.
I got a Blackberry Style 9760, and the price was sooo right: FREE.
I guess I do need an app for that, provided I ever use that feature again. I took a picture but nothing happened. I just got the phone today and have spent the last couple of hours getting familiar with it. Upgraded from a Pearl 8130. No more SureText :(, which requires careful proofreading, since there were two letters on every key and many words have the same key combinations (e.g., are-see, hit-guy). It ought to be called “UN-Sure Text.”
There are multiple QR reader apps for blackberry. Search for QR reader or QR scanner. I don’t have a blackberry so I can’t recommend one.