Communication Technology in the Extended Present and Futures

If you do not know what the above image is, then you are either behind the times or well ahead of the time these words were written. Indeed, this image is a bit behind the times. Given how quickly technologies change and society is changed by technology, you should not be surprised or feel bad. Quick Response (or QR) codes were invented in the mid-1990s by a firm working with Toyota to track auto parts through the manufacturing supply chain. By the late 2000s, QR codes became popular with advertisers seeking to exploit the rapid growth of the smartphone market, but due to some challenges, primarily issues with scanning and broken links, QR codes have fallen from grace with the tech community, although they can still be seen and found in many places and remain popular with artists and museums. The rise of QR codes would have been impossible without the advent of smartphones, which would have been impossible without the rise of wireless Internet access, which would have been impossible without the rise of high-capacity processors, and so on and so on, as we have shown. Ultimately, no technology emerges in a vacuum, and all technologies reflect the world in which they emerge, which is to say that they are deeply and intimately entwined with social and political phenomena.