A team of scientists led by Jon Kellar at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology have come up with a special QR code—using nanoparticles combined with blue and green fluorescent ink—that can be used to prevent counterfeiters from getting away with passing along forged cash.

Quick! Grab your iPhone and power up your favorite QR code-reading app, because these images are too explicit for us to post.

At a Seattle event, Microsoft demonstrated a way for Xbox 360 games like Kinectimals to share information with a Windows Phone handset. The connection uses a QR code that can be scanned by the handset and the Kinect.

When did you last scan a QR code? Was it during last week's Republican debate? Or maybe that ad for a free Coke at Wendy's. It probably wasn't on a coin. But the Dutch are changing that with QR-coded currency.

As well as being able to compare prices of stuff in the shops with a quick scan of the barcode/QR code, you can create artworks, as artist Scott Blake has shown with his series of famous faces.

Starting today, DC area bus stops are being treated with a bit of augmented reality. Smartphone users can get up-to-the-minute status reports and traffic updates for the bus they're waiting for by using a QR reading app. Convenient! [ReadWriteWeb]

See that beautiful model there, frolicking with a few of her friends? No? Well, your smartphone can. This billboard—and two others like it—is one giant QR code that in this case gives particular significance to augmented reality.

Furthering its advances into our physical realm, Google today announced a plan to display window decals in over 100,000 businesses that will designate them as the Google's "Favorite Places." More details, a demonstrational video and Big Brother fearmongering below.

Let's face it, QR Code hasn't been very exciting. Just dots and squares. But this QR facelift, combining the designs of Louis Vuitton with Takashi Murakami, just made Kanye make a mess in his shoes.

It seemed like magic back when barcodes could simply identify a grocery store item. And when QR codes hit the scene, pictures pointed us to URLs. Now "barcodes" have reached the next level of complexity.