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A QR code, the black-and-white square your phone scans, was invented in Japan in 1994 to track car parts in factories.

DENSO WAVE

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The story behind the card

Masahiro Hara led the small team at the Japanese car-parts company Denso Wave that created the QR code. An ordinary barcode held only about 20 characters, and workers had to scan several of them on each box of parts, so the team wanted a code that held far more and could be read quickly from any angle. Hara has said the grid of black and white squares was inspired by the stones on a Go board. The three large squares in the corners use a pattern of black and white bands chosen because it almost never appears in print, so a scanner can find the code instantly and tell which way up it is. Denso Wave chose not to enforce its patent for standard codes, so anyone could use them, and phone cameras later carried them onto menus, tickets and payment screens.

Türkçe oku
Telefonla okuttuğumuz siyah beyaz kare, yani QR kod, 1994'te Japonya'da fabrikalardaki otomobil parçalarını izlemek için icat edildi.

QR kodu, Japon otomotiv parçası şirketi Denso Wave'de Masahiro Hara'nın yönettiği küçük bir ekip geliştirdi. Sıradan bir barkoda yalnızca 20 kadar karakter sığıyordu ve işçiler her parça kutusunda birkaç barkod okutmak zorunda kalıyordu. Ekip, çok daha fazla bilgi taşıyan ve her açıdan hızla okunabilen bir kod istiyordu. Hara, siyah beyaz karelerden oluşan ızgaranın Go oyunundaki taşlardan esinlendiğini anlatır. Köşelerdeki üç büyük kare, basılı malzemede neredeyse hiç rastlanmayan bir siyah beyaz şerit düzeniyle çizilir; böylece tarayıcı kodu hemen bulur ve hangi yöne baktığını anlar. Denso Wave, standart kodlar için patent hakkını kullanmamaya karar verdi ve kodu herkes serbestçe kullanabildi. Telefon kameraları da onu menülere, biletlere ve ödeme ekranlarına taşıdı.

Sources and further reading

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