mob_tags - Beaumaris Conservation Society

Mobile
phone tags on public signs

Click
on
the

Menu of Main Pages here or on a link
below.

See
an explanatory link here for mobile
tagging. It describes the
Japanese “Quick Response (QR)
codes“, which are the
pioneering and most widely-used codes,
and the later European-US Data Matrix (DM) codes.
Both are two-dimensional barcodes that a
mobile phone loaded with a free app can
instantly photograph and link to a Web
page of information. The code being
printed on Page 2 of The Age is

a QR code. It is only 30 mm square,
which is easily photographed. An
automatic QR code reading app is easily
downloaded from the Quickmark website
to many brands of mobile phone and
installed. The DM codes seem to be more
geared to proprietary labelling, as they
can be made very much smaller, but some
users might prefer them, so both could
be usefully shown.

Space

on
a standard corner of each sign should be kept
for a QR code and, if thought fit, a DM code
also, placed there initially or later. Web
pages linked to could start as quite basic,
but are easily enhanced. Each page could have
a link to an Index of all signs, and a search
box, so visitors could search for matters of
their particular interest. Signs have no space
for versions in the many languages non-English
speakers might prefer, but Web pages can
easily provide numerous languages, sound,
videos, easy centralized updating, and user
storage and forwarding.

Visitors

will increasingly find that resource
valuable. They can also save the Index Page
link for later reference. A map showing
signs with clickable GPS references could be
useful. The website should have all the sign
information anyway. Younger aficionados
could well be motivated to show their
prowess with the codes to their parents and
friends, but cannot if the codes are not
there. Below are a QR code symbol and a DM
symbol for Bayside City Council’s website.
The symbols were made with a mobile

code generator facility, like Telstra’s
by typing in the URL of the web page and
saving the resulting QR code symbol as a
.jpg file. Bayside Council has included
mobile phone tags on its signs in Donald
MacDonald Reserve in Beaumaris, and in
Cheltenham Park.

Quick Response code

The

hypertext strings that should display the QR
code on the Bayside City Council website,
obtained using a code generator facility,
are:

<img
src=”http://mobilecodes.nokia.com/qr?DATA=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bayside.vic.gov.au

&MODULE_SIZE=4&name=&MARGIN=2&ENCODING=BYTE&type=link&MODE=TEXT&a=view”

alt=”” />

Link

to the Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc., of
which BCS Inc. has been a Member Organization
since 1970