The little square that is now on menus, utility bills and Pix payments started out far away from any restaurant counter.
A factory in Japan, in 1994
The QR code was created in 1994 by Denso Wave, a Japanese company in the Toyota group. The problem was tracking car parts in the factory: an ordinary barcode holds little information and has to be read the right way round. Engineer Masahiro Hara and his team wanted a code that held much more and could be read quickly, from any angle.
Inspired by a board game
Hara has said the idea came from the game of Go, with its black and white stones on a grid. The three big squares in the corners let the reader find the code and tell which way up it is.
A few more facts
- QR stands for Quick Response.
- One code can hold up to 7,089 digits.
- It can still be read with up to about 30% of it damaged or covered: that is why a logo can sit in the middle.
- Denso Wave holds the patent but chose not to charge for using it. That is what let the QR code spread all over the world.
On your site, a QR code can lead straight to your WhatsApp: just print it and leave it on the counter.