Android lovers understand those square barcodish looking things called “QR Codes” more than the average American, but they still haven’t picked up steam in the United States outside of a few main pockets or interest. One of those main “pockets” is the Android Market, where people across the interwebz link directly to Android Market apps through QR Codes seen and scanned on computer monitors. Now, Google is trying to further the adoption of QR codes by both developers and web surfers by incorporating the images into their URL shortner.
From Techcrunch:
add “.qr” to the end of any shortened link, and Google will generate a QR code for it. For example, the link http://goo.gl/SJhz would become http://goo.gl/SJhz.qr. The new trick was tweeted about earlier today by Google’s chief spam fighter Matt Cutts.
Of course the shortened link has to be a goo.gl shortened link, but we think you get the point.
Google isn’t the only one trying to push QR codes. We know that when we do application reviews and roundups, like our own Kevin Krause’s introduction post, we have requests for QR codes so you can quickly gain access to download the apps we mention. Well, rest assured we have an automatic solution coming soon that we’re pretty darn sure will meet and exceed your expectations.
Until then… scan away!
[No QR codes were scanned in the writing of this article]
But they want to be scanned! :(
Google Chrome Browser plugin for generating QR codes works also.
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/bcfddoencoiedfjgepnlhcpfikgaogdg
You should say no QR codes were *harmed* in the making of this article.
This is really just an integration of two of Google’s pre-existing services — Google URL shortener and Google Chart API.
With Google chart API, you can encode arbitrary data into a dynamically generated QR code such as this:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=545×545&choe=UTF-8&chld=H|0&chl=http://robopixel.com
Read about it here
http://code.google.com/apis/chart/docs/gallery/qr_codes.html
This is great, but what about those of us using the phandroid app or our phones to read about new apps? Hard for us to scan!
JS, you obviously have a valid need for two Android phones.