Right now, QR code ordering menu Malaysia is a common method of transaction in today’s restaurants, and it is also second nature to you. The widespread use of QR codes won’t be possible without the invention of a Japanese man in his Japanese hometown in 1994, and it is thanks to him that we have moved far away from traditional barcodes.
Japanese Origin
In Japan, a company called Denso Wave had a development team led by Masahiro Hara, the man that gave birth to the concept of scanning a black and white square and paying money with it. Their original task was to create a barcode that can be placed onto automobiles and their parts. These would also be easily tracked thanks to the barcode.
The result was the QR code and at the time, they didn’t expect it to be used beyond the automobile industry. According to Hara, he was surprised that QR codes are the norm in today’s society in many other industries, especially when it is used as contactless payment.
The QR code was invented in 1994, at the time when the automobile manufacturing technology was blasting off to new levels.
There were a few reasons why the QR code was invented in the first place besides one that was mentioned in the first paragraph.
More space
Before QR codes, there were Universal Product Codes, or UPC barcodes, which you can see on many price tags, food packages and so on. Since 1952, and for two decades, the barcode remained unchanged as it sped out transactions in checkout lines at supermarkets by the 70s.
In the 2000s, even after the invention of the QR code, the barcode business valued around US$17 billion. Its space to store information, however, is smaller compared to QR codes.
While QR codes are two dimensional, UPC barcodes are one dimensional, and the information is horizontally stored along their vertical lines. In the case of QR codes, since they are square in shape, this allows information to be stored both horizontally and vertically.
In short, QR codes can store way more information than UPC barcodes. Today, QR codes can store up to 7000 characters, which is ideal for businesses like food and beverages where size is at a premium.
Faster scans
Hara and Denso Wave created the QR code so they can have a code that they can scan at a faster rate, a speed that was demanded in the automobile industry at the time. Thanks to its bigger informational storage size, the scanning speeds up in two ways.
With optical scanners, more data can be accessed at any time since the information is encoded in two ways. Furthermore, as you may know today, you can scan QR codes from various, versatile angles and distances. This is fantastic for machine parts as they come in different sizes and shapes and move along on a rapid assembly line.
Both methods result in a code that offers speedy and efficient scanning, especially when it comes to dynamic QR codes where it turns a shortlinked URL into a QR code. The same types can also be used as QR code reporting and tracking systems.
