Bar Codes in the Darnedest Places!

April 15, 2013 By 1 Comment

When I was a child, we played with chalk.  We signed our names, we sketched daisies and diamonds and puppy dogs.  Left to our own devices on carefree summer days, we personalized our world.  Like the raucous undergrads who sneaked out and painted The Rock on Washtenaw Avenue, near the University of Michigan campus, we altered our environment simply to show that We. Were. There.

But in 2012, sidewalk chalk has been trumped by a new, technological signature:  the QR code.  QR codes are similar to the bar codes found on most products. Inside a square are digital patterns which, when scanned by a smartphone or an iPad with the proper application, connect the user to a website with the personal or business webpage incorporating text, photos and even videos.

At first primarily a business device to encourage technophiles to learn more about a company, the codes were printed in magazines and on book jackets.  As Americans load up on smartphones and high-technology, the QR codes have become more commonplace.  Today, you can find them on books and babies, clothing and cars, cookies and cats, tattoos and tombstones. Here’s what I mean:

Newborn genius destined for MIT?  Your infant can show his stuff in a QR Code onesie. Be sure to send a birth announcement with a QR code linking to a webpage with his personal stats!

Serving a fun dessert for a special occasion?  Linking to your family’s website will give guests something to think about long after the party ends.

 

Does your pet tend to wander?  A QR Code on Fido’s collar will ensure a safe return home.

 

 

Lost in the city?  Find your way—or learn about the local hangouts—with QR codes!

 

 

 

 

Selling your home?  Drive-by house hunters can link to your website and get a full tour without waiting for a more convenient time.

 

Always a fashionista, you want your Prince Charming to recognize your sterling qualities, even from across the room?  A QR Code tattoo may be just the tantalizer to woo the guy of your dreams.

And how about here?

Aunt Bertha was such a wonderful woman!  You wish people could know about her gooseberry pies and her talent for square dancing.  A tombstone QR Code can lead to your memorial website where you display favorite photos, and where family and friends can reminisce about life on the farm.

Filed Under: Advertising, Animals, Death, Fashion, Technology Tagged With: 1 Comment

Photoshop Ruins Everything!

March 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I posted this.  It was an Internet sensation.  Everyone I’d ever met “liked” it.  Within minutes, 78 people had shared it.

And then I saw this.  This photo of Pope Benedict (in papal white) and Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (in black) was taken at the Vatican on January 13, 2007. 

I pulled my first photo off the web, before it further cluttered the cloud with its particular brand of clerical nonreality.

When it’s possible to remove ex-girlfriends from photos, photobomb your friends with dancing cows, show yourself smiling and waving in front of palaces you’ve never seen, doesn’t that kinda spoil things for those of us who really do take pictures the old-fashioned way?

Oh—by the way, here is a postcard from Rome, in the years before Photoshop caught on with the masses.  It was taken in September 2000 in one of those quaint little photo booths, like you see at the state fair and maybe the mall.  This booth, though, was in the subway in Rome; and for about one Euro (or a few lira back in those days), you could have your personal photo reproduced as a postcard (like this one, of my husband and me) or imprinted on a rubber stamp.

Filed Under: Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis, Rome, Technology Leave a Comment

Facebook’s Newest Content Blocker Replaces Baby Photos With…. CATS?

September 2, 2012 By 16 Comments

A new Google Chrome add-on blocks photos of babies, replacing them with jokes or political posts or photos of cats.

Unbaby.me is like… well, it’s like “Virtual Contraception.”  According to MSN’s Tech and Gadgets blog, GeekTown, the add-on will replace baby photos on Facebook, the world’s most popular social network, with pictures of cats and whatever else it thinks is “awesome stuff.”

My son is of an age when many of his friends are settling down, marrying and starting a family.  Still a bachelor, he hasn’t yet discovered that newborns are the most beautiful, most interesting topic in the world; so he installed the baby blocker.  Now, when a proud mama posts photos of her beloved Clarice taking her first steps, Unbaby.me replaces it with a funny post.  A user of the add-on plug can choose to look, instead, at cute kittens  or fancy cars or pithy sayings from Walt Whitman, or any custom image-based RSS feed—whatever it is that floats his [virtual] boat.

The program relies on word cues:  giveaway phrases like “first tooth” or “first steps” or ”new baby.”  Then, it replaces the photo with something that’s more likely to elicit wows from the registered baby-avoider.

According to Unbaby.me, babies are to be enjoyed and loved when you choose, and should be invisible to the disinterested the rest of the time.  “They’re cute and wonderful, but sometimes the baby photo posting can get excessive and sickening. For many younger users on Facebook, they’ve gone from posting photos of themselves chugging kegs to posting pictures of their kids sucking on milk bottles….  We just wanted to bring the obvious baby problem to light,” explained Chris Baker, one of the founders.

Unbaby.me is not the first blocker to prevent undesired objects from displaying on your feed.  Earlier content blockers have stopped fan photos of the mopheaded Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Nickelback and the Kardashians.   

 

Filed Under: Babies, Technology Tagged With: , 16 Comments
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