Hyperlinks in Print IV
[cityofsound] Porter notes that they're dealing with "readers who get most of their news from television and the internet now" and without the hours to spend reading the paper that people used to have. He can't assume that people are going to read the whole thing - so there are navigational cues, layout guides, and other devices to alert the reader to other articles of interest within the paper (and presumably online) - almost, "if you like this article, you'll also like this one on page 14".
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Hyperlinks in Print III
This third chapter of our investigation into the use of hyperlinking metaphores in print design takes us to a page of the April 2005 issue of The Atlantic Monthly magazine: David Foster Wallace's cover story about talk radio. The layout of the article has been altered to facilitate interaction between the main text and the footnotes (not unlike the work done in I.D. magazine in early 2004).
Continue reading this entry... More QR codes
More photos of QR-codes found on everyday items in Japan.
Starting with 2 magazine adverts for mobile phones featuring barcodes linking to the mobile site of the maker; a graphics-softwares tutorial book that has a barcode on its cover including all the details about the book so you can come back later and ask for it precisely for example; a mini-guide to Tokyo areas and streets featuring a different barcode on each spread that if scanned takes you to a mobile site page giving you more precise information on Gourmet or Lodging informations for that very area delimited by the spread's contour; and finally an ink-stamp made by Sachihata with a barcode that could include all your contact details to then be printable on some of your belongings, letters, business cards.
I think that it is safe to say that more than 60% of all new mobile camera phones sold in Japan now have a QR barcode reader included in their system. I will get back to you as soon as I can get more precise numbers for the 3 main makers AU, DoCoMo and Vodafone.
Continue reading this entry... Fujitsu's Invisible Cameraphone Hyperlinks
[NEAsiaOnline] Fujitsu has developed a method for invisibly embedding information into printed images as small as one centimeter square. By printing a series of imperceptible yellow dots into an image, up to 12 digits of numeric information can be hidden, allowing a company to embed a phone number or encoded URL. Then, by taking a picture of the image with a cameraphone or PDA, special software can decode the numbers and call the company's phone number or look up their webpage. [via]
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They know where we are!
[NYTimes] When the 40,000 subscribers to Reason, the monthly libertarian magazine, receive a copy of the June issue, they will see on the cover a satellite photo of a neighborhood - their own neighborhood. And their house will be graphically circled.
Continue reading this entry... I.D. Magazine makeover
The January/February 2004 issue of International Design Magazine (I.D. Mag) sports a complete makeover. Exit the Bruce Mau look (too 90's), enter the sleek 80's look of the FTP folder. Continue reading this entry... Hyperlinks in Print I
The January/February 2004 issue of International Design Magazine (I.D. Mag) sports a complete redesign. On its last page, a new section called /flashback makes use of footnotes in an interesting way: numbered transparent yellow tapes are added to the text in lieu of the traditional footnote numbers. Continue reading this entry... Discuss [2]
Barcodes linking to online content III
In Japan, more than 68 million people can access internet from their mobile phones; book trains, airplanes, cinema, you name it, you can probably do it from your keitai (mobile in Japanese). However, some web URLs can be quite tedious to enter on the limited keyboard of a mobile phone. Enters the QR-code. Continue reading this entry... Barcodes linking to online content II
In late 2000, the US company Digital:Convergence released a bar code scanner profiled like a cat and appropriately called the Cue:Cat. Their dream was to link the physical world to the digital world by enabling us to scan bar codes on newspapers articles or any objects and be automatically taken to a corresponding website. Continue reading this entry...