Our favorite artist, Scott Blake, recently completed some new pieces. If you’re not familiar with his work, he uses barcodes to create interactive portraits of celebrities and other well-known figures. However, Blake doesn’t just use any barcodes—each portrait is well thought out and the barcodes used correspond to his subject matter. For example, his barcode portrait of Marilyn Monroe uses barcodes from her films. In addition, many of the barcodes are interactive, playing videos or linking to other relevant content.

In a recent interview with the Huffington Post, Blake was asked if he ever got bored of barcodes. His response? “Sometimes I get bored, but I find a new way to interact with them. I thought I might have stopped at this point but now we have QR codes, which are two dimensional bar codes. I just did a portrait that is completely interactive with smart phones. So I am embracing this new technology.”

Here’s to making barcodes fun, and always finding new uses for them.

Check out Scott Blake’s barcode rendition of Oprah below and see more of his work.

QR codes have appeared on tags on trees throughout the nation’s capital as part of a city-wide tree adoption program.

If you’re in Washington, DC, you may have noticed something on the trees—it’s a QR code! The District of Columbia’s Department of Transportation recently launched a QR code campaign as a part of their Canopy Keepers project. Basically, the QR codes are on the trees because, once scanned, residents can choose to adopt the tree.

Currently, the QR code tagged trees are located in Adams Morgan, Brookland, Fairlawn and Tenleytown. Theses neighborhoods will enjoy freshly planted trees, adorned with QR codes. Once a resident scans the QR code and chooses to adopt a tree, he/she must commit to supplying ten gallons of water to the tree each week between the beginning of spring to the beginning of winter, in addition to clearing weeds and/or litter and alerting the department of any necessary maintenance requirements.

This is definitely an innovative way to not only use QR codes, but help the environment too! Could you see a similar QR code tree adoption program taking place in other cities?

Share your thoughts by commenting below, or on our Facebook or twitter pages.

Could a barcode be one of the first things you see in the morning?

A new Android alarm clock app could really work in getting people to wake up without pressing snooze. The app, Morning Routine, forces users to wake up—when the alarm goes off, you must scan a barcode in order to turn in off. For example, if the first thing in your routine is brushing your teeth, users could set up the alarm so that they must scan the barcode on their toothpaste before the alarm shuts off.

This prevents people from “snoozing” and forces to get people out of bed and into other parts of the house to start their day. Users can also set up Morning Routine to scan a series of barcodes, such as your toothpaste, then mouthwash, then lotion to force you into a morning routine.

Watch the humorous video below to see the free Morning Routine app in action.

In honor of Facebook Pages moving to Timeline (we just converted ours), we wanted to showcase the latest barcode innovation at Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, recently called for a “Space Hackatjon,” asking employees to decorate new Facebook headquarters.

Employees headed to the rooftops, literall, and painted a 42-foot wide QR code on the roof that’s visible from space.

Once scanned, the code directs users to a Facebook QR Code Page, which will feature a variety of different fun things. But, you won’t be able to scan it unless you’re in the air, or until it appears on satellite maps.

The crew worked into the morning to complete the QR code, and in order to test it, they strapped a camera to a home-made remote-control helicopter and flew it over the roof!

Express your love (of barcodes) on Valentine’s Day… share this barcode Valentine!