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Masahiro Hara was not the first person to find ways to improve barcodes, but only his matrix code or QR Code two-dimensional barcode could come into practice, even opening up many ways. The application surprised the inventor himself.
Since 1974, barcodes have been used in supermarkets - they are a collection of many bars of different thicknesses on product packaging. With a simple barcode scanner, product information such as origin and price can be read quickly.
However, the limitation of this barcode is that it only includes 20 different numbers and letters. It is too limited to store more information. The solution to this problem is to create 2-dimensional code. And QR Code is the best 2-dimensional code (Quick-Response Code). This QR Code can be read from left to right, from top to bottom. Codes can represent up to 7,000 numbers and letters. With the latest technology, compressed IQR Code can even reach 40,000 digits and letters.
Masahiro Hara is the inventor of the QR Code that is commonly used today. After graduating, at the age of 22, student Masahiro Hara worked at the Japanese car components manufacturing corporation Denso. "The company assigned me the task of finding more solutions to put more information into the product code, to better serve customers," he said.
Hara is not the first to seek to improve product code technology. There have been previous tests to expand barcodes. Since the 1980s there have been the first two-dimensional codes. But scanning this type of code takes too much time so it cannot be applied in practice. Masahiro Hara thought of a solution to the problem during a walk when he looked up at the helicopter landing pad on the roof of a high-rise building. He came up with the idea of a pattern positioned at the three corners of the code. With this positioning aid, the scanner focuses on the code faster and better while still distinguishing between top and bottom, left and right. “With compressed barcodes, the reader only needs about 3 seconds to decode the content,” Hara said.
The invention of the QR Code became the basis for the birth of Denso Wave, a subsidiary of Denso. Although QR Codes are protected by patents, their application and creation are completely free. Denso Wave is profits come from developing and distributing QR Code reading devices.
Currently, engineer Hara is the manager of the Auto-ID Engineering department of Denso Wave. This 56-year-old engineer continues to improve the code is performance and develop algorithms so that QR Code codes can be read faster with Smartphones. “Also we care about the design of the code. We want to make it more engaging, more interesting, more secure.”
In the mid-90s, when engineer Hara developed QR Code, smartphones were still extremely strange. Back then, he could not have imagined that his invention would become the door to virtual reality. With the explosion of smartphones, QR Code applications have become popular today, especially in non-cash payments.
Although invented in 1994, QR Code is mainly used to store product information. Today QR Code codes are applied in many different fields such as:
A recent application is a QR Code application for a new supermarket chain. Supermarkets are simply boards that introduce images of products and QR Codes displayed in public places. Customers use QR Code and Smartphone to make purchases. The ordered goods will then be delivered to the customer.
What surprises engineer Hara in the current application of QR Code? “Now on T-shirts, codes have become decorative patterns. Some people even get code tattoos. That is something I never really thought about. In the US, in a study of honey bees, people used QR Codes to mark bees to monitor their behavior and movements. This I find very interesting.”
In 2021, QR codes were used in tracking COVID-19 tests as well as tracing patient communication. Hara has stated that he wants to develop QR codes for healthcare for many different purposes, especially in managing X-ray and electrocardiogram data.