What started as a technology to assist with inventory management in stores, barcodes have evolved beyond supermarket checkout aisles, with codes getting used to present information to users on their personal devices. Now, restaurants use QR codes to deliver menus and accept contactless payments, and it was an absolute necessity at the height of the COVID pandemic.

What’s more, the technology is improving rapidly. Spanish tech firm NaviLens’ ddTags are a next-generation matrix barcode, and it can get read up to 12 times farther away than QR codes. It can also get scanned at an angle with a 160-degree field, read in 1/30th of a second, and you can find it in transit systems in Barcelona, Murcia, and Madrid.