QR Code + Emoticons = ?

FarEasTone recently have been running an ad on the mini-newspaper Upaper to promote Nokia handsets as well as QR Code. Upaper claims on its frontpage that it averaged a daily distribution of 1,155,297 copies in July, so this ad should have gotten plenty of eyeballs. Upaper is distributed for free at various MRT stations in Taipei.

The QR Code in display contains the simple text: "hey~ you are a little strange" (translated from Chinese). It turns out that these QR Codes are supposed to be used like secret messages. They are even made into magnets (along with a board for display) and are gifts to customers of specific phones. So it might work like this: if you are too shy to say something in person, you can choose to stick QR magnet on your cubicle and your colleagues will have to have a barcode reader to figure out what you have in mind. They are also giving out special QR Codes that give exclusive access to ringtones & wallpapers of popular music artists, more detailed information can be found at FET's promotional webpage or you can click here to try scanning some of these codes (I was able to read the codes directly from the images using QuickMark on N73).