All About the QR Code – When and Where Did it Come From?
- March 23, 2025
- Bradley Taylor
We are all used to the QR code now. If you see an add on TV and like the product you can whip out your phone and scan the QR code to get more detailed information. Or, you just sit down at a restaurant and before the server has a chance to greet you, you are able to scan a QR code on the table to get a head start on looking at the menu.
It is no doubt that this modern invention has made life a slightly more convienent. But, when did these codes first pop up? Who invented it?
You may be thinking that the QR code probably dates back to the invention of the smart phone but its history is much older than that.
In 1994, a team led by Masahiro Hara at Denso Wave, a subsidiary of the Japanese automotive company Denso, which itself is part of the Toyota Group, invented this particular tow-dimensional bard code. QR codes are able to provide much more data than traditional bar codes.
A Quick Response (QR) code is capable of storing up to 7,089 numeric characters or 4,296 alphanumeric characters—hundreds of times more than a barcode.
With the advent of modern mobile smart devices, this code really took off. There is currently no known code, or one in the works, that is more efficient or effective than the QR code.
