how much information can be pulled out of this kind of image barcode?

March 15, 2010 3:54 PM

I'm curious what kind of information this kind of image code can contain? Can anyone read this? Is there an iphone app that will pull all details out of this? thanks!
posted by capedape to Technology (7 answers total)

That's a QR Code. There are lots of iPhone apps that can read them. They usually just consist of a link to a website.
posted by zsazsa at 3:57 PM on March 15, 2010

It's this URL

http://www.moleskine.com/s.php?id=978-88-8370-112-2

Used zbar on the iPhone to decode it.
posted by neilbert at 3:57 PM on March 15, 2010

You can use this to decode it to this.
posted by Jimbob at 4:27 PM on March 15, 2010

Response by poster: Ahh. I've read a bit about the "internet of things"

Out of curiosity, say there is a QR code on a book sent to me, would I be able to scan and pinpoint information about that "individual" book, or does it just contain the generic ISBN for that title - like 978-88-8370-112-2 in example above?

Thanks for the helpful answers.
posted by capedape at 6:31 PM on March 15, 2010

QR codes can contain pretty much any kind of textual information. However, the more data the hold, the more big and unwieldy they get. So, their use is mostly limited to pointers to websites that have more information. An actual serial number encoded for an individual book in a QR code is not outside the realm of possibility.
posted by zsazsa at 11:05 PM on March 15, 2010

Now you know what it is, you might find this recent question interesting.
posted by galaksit at 7:45 AM on March 16, 2010

Response by poster: @galaksit thanks that's an interesting post.

@zsazsa oh wow, yeah that looks rather unwieldy. The one I linked just looks like it's ISBN and link only right?
I know people can put hidden information in Jpgs, do you know if it contains more info than that? thanks
posted by capedape at 3:14 PM on March 17, 2010