QR codes
Recently you may have noticed a proliferation of black and white chequered squares appearing on posters, advertisements and even on some supermarket products.
Common in Japan and now becoming big in Britain, these barcode-like designs are called QR or Quick Response codes.
They work with your mobile phone’s camera to take you immediately to a website providing information about the event, product or service being advertised. Sometimes the QR code will lead you to a money-off voucher you can use at a checkout without having the bother of printing it out beforehand.To access QR codes you’ll need to download a special app to your phone – there are dozens of these free on the iPhone and Android phone app markets (QR Reader and ScanLife being two of the most popular ones).
Such is the growth of the QR code that it’s likely that most top-end smartphones will soon come with a QR code-reader program already installed.
Click here to try out the Woteva teen translator QR code.
Google Goggles
The Orwellian-sounding ‘augmented reality’ uses your mobile phone camera to recognise objects or places it photographs and instantly beam back to you a mass of internet-derived information about what it sees. Let’s say you’re on holiday; instead of looking up the name of a building, simply photograph it. Seconds later the picture will have been matched to existing images on the internet and a stream of information on the identity, history, opening hours etc of the building will flow onto your mobile.
Google Goggles is currently available only on iPhones but will soon come to Android, while iPhone users need first to download the new, free Google Search app. Google Goggles can be accessed from within it.
Aurasma
This is the most ambitious of these new methods of extracting information from the world about us, developed by the Cambridge company Autonomy, founded by Mike Lynch, Britain’s answer to Bill Gates. Point your smartphone at an Aurasma-enabled picture and watch it leap into moving video in front of your eyes.
Lynch describes Aurasma as ‘making the world browse-able’ – which sounds a little like Google Goggles, except Aurasma takes it to the next level. Look for pictures with a little blue capital A in a magazine or newspaper – which indicates they have been ‘Aurasma enabled’ – and watch them come to life. You can try out this amazing device on none other than Saga’s latest Travellers World and cruise brochures (see below).Get hold of a brochure first! Call 0800 300456 or visit saga.co.uk/brochure.
Click here to see how a Saga brochure can come to life with Aurasma.