The increasing popularity of QR codes in China
It’s being used to encourage tipping at restaurants, receive cash gifts at weddings…even beggars are using it to collect handouts. The little barcode is driving China’s rapid shift towards a cashless society
A QR code is a box of random looking blocks, such as this one:
The codes can contain website addresses, passwords, bits of text, etc. Basically, anything that can be represented digitally can be encoded as a QR code. There are apps for smartphones that allow you to read QR codes, and the next version of iOS for the iPhone and the iPad will have built in integration for using QR codes.
Teachers have been using QR codes for years as a quick and easy way to post website addresses for students and the community to use to quickly navigate to a website. Usage in China has taken it much, much further.
