Do you know what a QR code is? They're the funny looking boxy UPC things. Here's one:

If you scan one of these with a smartphone barcode reader, it will read out the information. The one above contains a URL to a website, but they can contain just text or an image. They've been heralded as the next big thing for marketers, but in the United States, they haven't really caught on.

There are a few reasons for this. First, it suffers from the same issues as the CueCat, in that it doesn't really solve a huge problem. They're mostly used for hyperlinks to product pages, so at most it saves a few keystrokes in a browser's address bar. And most people that I've met aren't even sure if they have a QR code reader on their phone.

But one of the main reasons probably has to do with the fact that QR codes have largely been appropriated by marketers. The only places I've ever seen them is on promotional posters and in store windows. Television might be driven by advertising, but there are other aspects to the medium that make it a worthwhile invention. QR codes won't get picked up as a tool if they're used for little else than enabling companies to hock their wares.

It would be interesting if someone did something a little more imaginative than try to sell something with it. Think of geocaching. What if someone constructed a puzzle of several pieces, made QR codes of each one, and hung them up in a single town around office buildings? Imagine passing an unlabeled, lonely QR code every day on your way into work? How long before your curiosity got the better of you and you tried scanning it?

I think there are lots of interesting ways in which they could be used, none of which have anything to do with selling things.