Poet Eloise Klein Healy Uses QR Codes to Read Poems to You and Google’s View on NFC and QR Codes

QR codes on books are nothing new. We have seen QR codes placed on book jackets informing people about the book or the author.

QR codes on books are not just for marketing purposes. We have seen these two-dimensional matrix bar codes crop up on the classic novel “Around the World in 80 Days,” where scanners are taken to online materials, videos and audio files to learn more about the different places mentioned in the book.

Even publishing powerhouse Simon and Schuster revealed that they will start using QR codes.

A collection on poetry written by Eloise Klein Healy will have QR codes in them. The QR codes will link the reader to audio files, which are recordings of the poet reading her work.

For those who do not have smartphones, you can still access the recordings on Healy’s website.

Google Is Still Bullish on NFC

Meanwhile, Google is still betting on NFC for its mobile wallet service.

Apple might have snubbed near-field communication with its iPhone 5, but Google still believes in the technology. Google has an NFC-based mobile payment service called Google Wallet, and although it has made great strides in the recent months, adoption has been particularly slow.

The slow adoption is seen from the side of both consumers and retailers.

Speaking at the Global Mobile Internet Conference, Google Wallet’s head honcho, Osama Bedier, concedes that NFC payments such as their wallet service would not immediately catch on. But it is going to be ubiquitous three to five years from now.

Bedier also reveals that Wallet users have been doubling every six weeks since they configured Wallet to accept any card.

Asked about QR codes, Bedier says that NFC might be a better solution than QR codes, the technology used in rival Apple’s Passbook service. Bedier says that users will need “to futz” with QR codes. Bedier also predicts that when NFC becomes cheaper, it will eventually replace QR code and other forms of barcodes. Bedier calls NFC as the “future” and the best solution for mobile purchases and payments.