It's called 'physical linking.' Who knew? Not me. 

I have no pride. I'll admit it. I'd never even heard of QR codes until I read about them this morning on Brent Schlenker's elearning blog.

These 2D barcodes apparently are ubiquitous in Japan, where users can see a poster about a website they'd like to visit, snap a picture of the code with the cameras in their phones, and the site loads on their devices. Is that cool or what?

Imagine this. You're stuck in traffic and the driver in the next lane has such a code on a sign in his window that tells you he has a new episode in his podcast about something local -- the status of congressional races or announcements of lectures you won't see listed in the Reader. The URL your phone grabs is the .mp3 file.

Why is the U.S. so far behind with mobile?

Some people are up on it. It will be a track about it at MobileCampNYC2 this weekend facilitated by David Harper, the Winksite guy.

If you make a free mobile site from your blog's feed (or add content by hand) at Winksite, it generates QR code for you, if you want to try it. I've no clue if my not-so-smart phone knows what to do with it, yet I remain interested!