(WICHITA, Kan.) — They show up at the bottom of magazine ads, business cards and even tv commercials. They're QR codes, a tool being utilized by professionals and advertisers to make it easier to remember their business.
QR Codes stand for Quick Response Codes. It was invented in the mid-1990's by a subsidiary of Toyota to better organze automobile parts. In recent years in America, with the rise in the popularity of smart phones, QR Codes started being used to store information like web addresses, maps, coupons and contact information.
To read a QR code, you need a smart phone with a QR reader app. On many Android phones, there is a QR reader pre-installed. On the iPhone, apps can be downloaded from the app store. When you come across a code, you activate the app, take a picture of it or scan the code, then your phone will do the rest.
