The latest design for the product packaging will feature the smartphone friendly barcodes.
In its latest step to appeal to nutrition conscious consumers, McDonald’s Corp. has announced that it will be adding QR codes to the latest design of its product packaging, to make it easier for customers to learn about the foods they are purchasing.
The fast food restaurant has been making several similar efforts to simplify the transmission of information.
This largest fast food chain in the world has been making a number of different efforts over the last few months and in recent years, in order to make nutrition a higher priority. The QR codes are an element of this overall effort, in that they make it easier for consumers to check the nutrition content of the foods that they order.
By using QR codes, this nutrition information becomes much more conveniently accessible.
Kevin Newell, the chief brand officer at McDonald’s, explained that “Customers tell us they want to know more about the food they are eating and we want to make that as easy as possible by putting this information right at their fingertips.” As a growing number of those guests to the restaurants have smartphones, QR codes became a natural choice to assist in this effort.
The packaging featuring the barcodes will be launched throughout the United States, this week. Though they will not be present on every item, these black and white square will be found on the carry out bags, as well as on the fountain beverage cups from American locations. Throughout the rest of 2013, this same effort with QR codes will be rolled out worldwide as the information is translated into 18 additional languages.
The packaging, itself, was designed with the assistance of a number of different groups of people. It began with the feedback of the customers, themselves, but it also took into account the opinions of advisors in the fields of nutrition, fitness, and public health as a whole. The QR codes are an extension of the effort made last September, where all McDonald’s locations in the United States added the calorie information to each of the foods listed on their restaurant and drive through menus.
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The service has now been rolled out in order to help to make traveling more convenient.
Google has just announced that they have rolled out their automatic digital boarding passes based on QR codes through their Google Now service in order to allow travelers to use their mobile devices for a number of convenient purposes.
The Google Now service helps users stay up to date on everything from sports scores to weather conditions.
This latest announcement has revealed that the anticipated QR codes and associated mobile boarding passes have now gone live. It was made through the @Android Twitter account held by the company. The posting came with a video that helped to demonstrate this brand new feature to the service.
The QR codes help airline travelers to avoid unnecessary lines and boarding pass kiosks.
They also provide more convenience over having to print out the boarding passes at home, as the QR codes and additional information is all displayed on the mobile device screen. For individuals who already have smartphones and who bring them with them whenever they travel, it eliminates a number of steps that can help to reduce the number of hassles along the way.
The service is possible by accessing the flight confirmation emails that the smartphone user has on his or her device, and then automatically draws up the boarding pass based on that information. In order to actually use this pass. The travelers can simply check in with the airline as they usually would with a paper boarding pass.
Once the traveler has checked in, the Google Now automatically retrieves the digital boarding pass which is assigned its own unique QR codes. This is done on behalf of the traveler, without any additional required effort. Aside from the barcode, it also contains the terminal, gate, and seat number, as would be assigned on a printed boarding pass.
When the passenger arrives at the gate, the QR codes can be displayed on the device screen so that they can be scanned by the attendant. So far, the service works only with certain specific airlines – which have not yet been identified by Google. However, this information will likely be released over time. At the moment Google Now is available only on devices running Android 4.1 or higher.
