Olympics: QR-code

Olympics: QR-code

Some readers of this blog might remember me getting real excited about the possi­bi­lities of the QR-code in our profession. I still think it might be (or might HAVE been) a great transi­tional technology when we are making the move from the printed paper to other (multi­media capable) platforms.

At the time, I tried convince couple of editors that this might be a direction to go… but with no real response. But: I was happy to notice that the use of the code is slowly gaining ground. I’ve seen them used in Korea and Japan a lot… and now they started using them in the Olympics.

For instance, the Canon counter has the code of the focusing guide of the new 1X taped on their counter. So you can get it easily into your smartphone or iPad — and those of you who have used the EOS 1Dx know the focusing capabi­lities are pretty extensive and require lots of settings to get it exactly to your liking.

When you come to the games you are also given couple of books: media guide, trans­por­tation guide and photo­graphers guide. Total weight like over one kilo. Would be nice to have the info with you when you are working… but no way I will carry that pile along with my other — already pretty heavy — gear.

But: the backside of the “photo­graphy guide” comes with an QR-image.

So I scanned it with my iPhone and iPad and now I have all the essential infor­mation (which is like 400 pages) with me in the venues: where to go, where NOT to go, who to contact, locations of the photo positions, is there FOP-possi­bility, etc.

Actually, you can even scan it from this page and see (should you be interested) for yourself how our working premises are over here.

Sweet. Smart. Like it should be.

But still some room to hope for as the Traspor­tation guide only has “after using this manual, please recycle” — and cannot be scanned. Maybe in Rio?

3 Replies to “Olympics: QR-code”

  1. Thanks for posting the picture of QR-tag. It was interesting to see whats in the manual. Blogging and social media use is not that strict as the press has written.

    Have a great three weeks and hope you get great shots!

  2. Just checked something after reading your QR post — the Written Media (green) Handbook does have the QR code at the back, it is the Media Transport Guide which does not ;-)
    But you are right, it is a whole lot lighter/easier to carry this info on your iPad than to lug these bricks with you for the next weeks.. especially when my London 2012 bag decided to break during the first day of use…
    Hopefully will manage bump into you during the next weeks in London !!

    1. Hi -
      great — and fair enough (I corrected my mistake in the post). Funny though they did not do the same thing with the trans­por­tation guide… Anyway: good to see that these things (i.e. QR) is picking up; so many things made just so much simpler by using them. Maybe by 2015–2o20 they start to be more common in the North Pole as well… ;-)

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