You’ve seen them everywhere. Those weird 2D barcodes have made their way onto business cards, bus shelter advertisements, product packaging and into the newspaper. And now, the age of the QR code just might be coming to an end even before it ever really made any real mainstream impact. You can thank Google for that.

As Google ramps up its support for NFC, it is completely shutting down its support for QR codes in its Places services. I never used QR codes and now I never need to either.

I guess the idea sounded decent, since it effectively eliminated typos and such, but it just didn’t seem too convenient to whip out the appropriate app, take a picture of the blocky shape, and wait for it to redirect you to an app or site…. when you could have taken that last step on your own. NFC isn’t the same as QR, to be sure, but Google’s got to put its priorities where it needs to put its priorities.

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