The QR codes we know (or not really know at all) are changing. The strange black and white little squares are giving way to coloured designs and they are providing far richer information.

Companies are using them to provide purchase history information about consumers. Technology currently being tested is showing businesses which app scanned the code, where the code was scanned and what other codes have been scanned by that same app.

Tesco is one company that has used the new QR code technology in its ‘Prices Dropping’ advertising campaign. This campaign made in partnership with Blippar actually combined an evolved form of QR codes with an evolved form of Augmented Reality (where a view of reality is altered by a computer).

Once the code was read by the device the falling prices were revealed. Interesting maybe, but where it did get useful is that the QR code enabled you to download daily recipes from Tesco and get store information.