I have to make frequent visits from where I currently live in Northern Thailand to Bangkok. The bus is the best option for me. Unfortunately, it’s a 10-hour one-way trip. That means I have to keep myself entertained. But with today’s technology, it’s easy to do. For example, the box of Oishi green tea juice that the bus service gave me contained a QR code.

On the box, it was referred to as the “AR Technology” Code. I took AR as “Augmented Reality”. That’s a bit misleading, but maybe that’s how the company using Oishi refers to QR. By the way, QR is short for “Quick Response”.

I know about QR codes, but have never really looked at them, other than identifying them on various products. I had yet to go as far as to take a picture of the code and see what information it contained. It is not very popular in the United States yet and the products that had codes did not interest me. But I had a lot of free time, so I decided to check it out.

According to Wikipedia, QR codes are very popular in Japan. QR codes were invented in Japan in 1994, where they are currently the most popular type of two-dimensional code. It also makes sense that my green tea juice box would have a QR label… Oishi is a Japanese company.

QR codes are often used on advertisements and product packaging so that users can take a photo with their cell phone or webcam and then use the Internet to search for product information, promotions/discounts, and whatever else consumers love so much. . I decided to try this myself, so I downloaded “QR Reader” for my iPhone.

I took a photo with my iPhone camera and loaded QR Reader. The app allows you to take a photo directly from the app or choose a saved photo. I selected the QR tag photo. After a few seconds, the application returns the following code: 8JZEPC

What does 8JZEPC mean? I was confused, so I saved the information and decided to investigate further when I had access to high-speed Internet.

When I got home, I went to the AR Code section of the Oishi website. This is what the site says:

“Oishi Green Tea invites you to a new gaming experience. The first combination of the best technology in 2010 AR Technology and online restaurant games together. The first time you will play as a restaurant owner. From Interior Design Shop Management with a cool menu cooked from everyone around the world Use of AR technology as part of the game Code box next to Oishi Green Tea UHT Transmission via webcam Oishi Green Tea website Imaginative fun from the north creating a complete set of restaurant of the most innovative line of AR”.

Gotta love the translation of this. From what I gather, the code I received is part of a game. Here is the official link to the QR game. Use this code in-game/online contest to keep progressing and ultimately win prizes. Very cool.

So it turns out that my iPhone read the QR correctly, it was just that instead of waiting for a website to read more information about Oishi Green Tea, it was a code used as part of an online game. Go figure! Anyway, I have a good time researching the technology and highly recommend Oishi green tea.