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Mobile UX designers and marketing and analytics firm Nellymoser today released a comprehensive study of print magazine action codes. They took the time to review every 2011 issue of the top 100 national magazine titles: all 164,000 pages' worth. They found a total of 4,400 QR Codes, MicrosoftTags, Spyderlynk SnapTags, BEE Tags, JagTags, Digimarc watermarks and other codes with an iPhone or Android device. For each tag, they scanned and ran the resulting Web page or video. At least give them props for being thorough.

The results show to no surprise that despite their problems, tags are becoming more popular, from an average of two per issue at the beginning of the year to more than six nearing the end.

Google has released a new way to securely log into Google accounts on public computers. Using a smartphone, scan the QR code generated at accounts.google.com/sesame. The Google login prompt will appear on your phone, and logging in there will log you into a session on the desktop.

This prevents the user from having to type sensitive login credentials into a public machine, which could be compromised with keylogging software. The new QR code feature is an alternative to Google's 2-step verification. This generates a unique short code on your mobile, which you must input for each desktop login, using the presence of your phone as a form of identification.

At this point there's probably nothing in geekdom, no matter how arcane, that hasn't ended up on someone's skin. "In" someone's skin, to be precise. From ASCII art, to xkcd comics, to video games, to binary, to parts of your childhood you just can't leave behind, there are entire sites like Geeky Tattoos now devoted to nerd ink.

Back in 2010 we put together our first list of the 30 best and worst Web tech tattoos. Here's our latest compilation, including an augmented reality tattoo, HTML tags, Javascript and C++, Debian, Wordpress, Google, Microsoft, RFID, QR codes, even Bill Gates' face. If you have work that's better, or worse, show it off in the comments.

Shopping is overwhelming enough, especially around the holidays. The leading consumer Web companies are falling over themselves to make it easier using all the innovative technologies at their disposal. As they figure it out, though, that only leaves consumers with even more options. Do we shop in person, on our desktops, our phones or our tablets? Do we go to a website or launch an app? Which one? How do we pay?

These questions have to be answered before we even get to choosing what to buy. They all make shopping easier, though, whether through giving us more information before we buy or by speeding up the process. Here are three kinds of Web-powered innovations that will contribute to the future of shopping.

According to a new study from Forrester Research, 5% of U.S. adults now scan 2D bar codes - including QR codes - with their smartphones, up from 1% in 2010. Compared to consumer adoption, the development of 2D bar code reading software has grown much faster, while business adoption of the codes as a strategy has grown much slower.

"Too few eBusiness professionals use best practices to offer consumers good experiences once they've scanned a bar code," writes author Julie Ask. The study's conclusion is that consumer habits are driven by ubiquity and ease of access; just like with traditional 1D bar codes, consumers will get used to them the more prevalent they are. That means it's up to businesses to use QR codes wisely while not being afraid to keep up with consumers' interest in new technologies.

The QR code is a weird side effect of the mobile Web revolution. The idea is so nice; a link between the Web and the real world through the powerful computers in our hands. But even though they've been around for a while, QR codes are still mostly used for mundane purposes, rather than innovative ones.

The technology has three problems at a pretty low level: smartphones are still an elite product, the scanning process can be clunky, and QR codes look more like robot barf than something meant for humans. The potential is there, though. How can we make a better link between the Web and the world outside?

Just as the use of QR codes slowly creeps toward mainstream adoption in the United States, someone has found a way to exploit them. But how serious is the threat?

Some owners of Android-powered smartphones in Russia were surprised recently when they tried to download an ICQ chat app by scanning a 2D barcode. What they got instead was an unusually large phone bill after their phone sent a series of SMS messages to a premium texting service, which charges a few dollars per text.

The future of mobile payments has the potential to invade your senses. MasterCard is showing off what could be the next wave of innovation in payments this afternoon at an event in New York City. Imagine being able to wave at your TV and order a pizza. Or get a coupon because your smartphone was listening to a commercial. These possibilities are not as far-fetched as you might think.

MasterCard Labs is working on proof-of-concept for these payment solutions and more. Not all of these futuristic designs will make it to market, but enough of them will that user behavior will be fundamentally changed within the next decade.

New data from comScore show that 14 million Americans, 6.2% of all mobile users, scanned QR (quick response) codes or bar codes with their mobile devices in June 2011. Users who scanned QR codes were more likely to be male (60.5%), between ages 18-34 (53.4%), and have a household income of $100k or higher (36.1%). The most likely places for people to scan QR codes were on printed magazines or newspapers, product packaging, or on the Web, straight from their computer screen.

We've covered some interesting ways of employing QR codes to bring the Web out into the world, like QR-enabled tourism and scavenger hunts. But comScore's new data show that, at least for now, QR codes are mostly used in more traditional marketing efforts, and they reach a specific demographic of young males in high income brackets.

We've written extensively about QR codes, including a story that ran earlier this week about using them as a virtual tourism activity. But an announcement from Hipscan.com caught our attention about how you can actually use these curious codes to generate hard cash money.