From Gizmodo and dottocomu I have learned about a time-clock in Japan that displays a barcode so that a worker with a camera phone can snap a photo of the barcode and clock into work by transmitting the data to a server.
This "King Jim" clock [in Japanese] uses QR barcodes (common in Japan) that can be recognized by a camera phone and then transmitted with a Java application. The idea is contract employees, such as medical workers and home teachers, would be able to remotely document that they are on the job.
Dottocomu says, "No information on pricing, or whether the QR codes can be hacked to show you working a 9 to 5 in a Chiba nursing home while you sit drinking beer under a tree somewhere."
Beyond time clocks
Mike Masnick of Techdirt Wireless writes in The Feature about the ramifications of QR codes that go beyond the time clock application (that might or might not be useful). He says, "Initially designed just to retrieve a bit of information, this example shows that some are considering ways to add additional services to QR codes to make them more practical for letting people overlay digital services on top of an analog world.
"While this example seems to just replicate what was already possible, other applications will start to offer possibilities that simply weren't possible before."
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