That's OK - they're still reporting the news accurately and I'm not knocking that. But I would like to add that there is a rather worrying bigger implication in this announcement than simply one related to smartphone business in a few specific markets.

The problem with Yandex is that they have a somewhat dubious record of 'interfering' with results in a way that consistently does favours to the Kremlin. Very often these discrepancies will take the form of some high-profile opposition rally, event, or campaign - which is well covered online in blogs, images etc and thus ranks highly on Google.ru results - but is nowhere to be seen on Yandex. The excuse has usually been that the omission is down to technical difficulties but, the more often this happens; the less convincing the excuse seems (more examples here and here).

The other problem is that Yandex is otherwise pretty good at Russian language searching and has over 60% market share in Russia, as well as a strong presence in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Turkey totalling 56 million users worldwide. The latest announcements suggest that these numbers will only increase if they manage to establish a similar dominance in the smartphone market (although the prospects for Windows phone generally don't look amazing so that might hold things back a bit).

The bottom line though is that Putin's anti-democratic regime initially underestimated the power of the internet to undermine autocratic and repressive rulers. Instead they focused much more on censoring visual media - especially television. This was pretty effective as long as Russia's internet connectivity rates were low - which is becoming less and less the case these days, a process accelerated by the advent of smartphones.

This has meant that now events like the 31st-of-the-month opposition rallies get a huge web presence and thus increase the visibility of the campaign, while Youtube music videos of pro-democracy songs are now regularly attracting over a million viewers very quickly (whereas as recently as 2008 or 2009 such figures would have been unimaginable). Events in the Arab world have probably furthered the sense that the internet now represents a much more real threat to repressive and autocratic regimes than before.

Now, there is one other search engine that comes to mind here: China's Baidu, which effectively censors the internet for the benefit of the ruling regime, silencing any attempt at dissent, opposition, or even democratic activity. Google eventually backed out of that territory on ethical grounds (not wanting to be complicit in this censorship - and also probably concluding that they could afford to do so without it being that financially disastrous), but then Bing came in to try and lap up some of the slack by partnering up with Baidu to deliver English language results. And you know who owns Bing? That's right - Microsoft, the same company behind Windows obviously, and also Windows Phone.

Why am I bringing this up? Because we know from Microsoft's track record with Bing and Baidu that they will happily comply with even the most repressive regime to censor the internet if it means they can get a little slice of market share. That means that they are a perfect match for Yandex, who also seem to err away from the principle of a completely free internet, and thus that this potential expansion in market share (via the smartphone deal announced above) could also be evidence of Russia's internet sliding slowly towards something which resembles the situation in China. That is not simply business news and nor is it something which should pass by unnoticed...

(p.s. If all this sounds a little hyperbolic to you, don't forget that in some other parts of the world even using the Facebook 'Like' button can be a political act that might land you in jail...)

So basically, head over to goo.gl and type in the URL you want shortening. Then stick that in the URL bar and simply add .qr to the end and, voila, your own unique QR code for the URL. So for example I can shorten the etonDIGITAL homepage to http://goo.gl/9eXt and then add the .qr extension to get http://goo.gl/9eXt.qr This then goes in the URL bar to generate my QR code, below:

This can now be scanned by a mobile device with a QR code reader, enabling someone to access our homepage without having to actually type in a URL. It may only sound like it'll save a few seconds - but in the world of mobile computing and user interfacing this is a far from negligible period of time.

This of course has been coming for some time (if I remember correctly, I think that the first post I ever wrote on this blog, almost three years ago, was about QR codes and mobile devices), but nonetheless the accessibility offered by QR codes - and Google's extremely simple and efficient way of generating and sharing them - is a big step.

As well as creating much tighter cohesion between print and online advertising practices (readers who see an ad in a newspaper, will now be far more likely to follow it up online since they can do so with their mobile device in a matter of seconds to give one illustration), the system will be an extremely valuable asset for anyone operating at the bridging point between virtual and physical spaces (which essentially is what a printed or written down URL is). Google's excellent service promises to make implementing QR codes a cheap and accessible option for anybody.

The really interesting stuff begins now as we explore the various possibilities and uses that such a service can be put to. I personally wouldn't be surprised to find various objects we encounter around us increasingly 'tagged' with QR codes, which we can quickly snap with a mobile device to access more in-depth information. It could be handy for example for items in a shop (you get best of both worlds as a shopping experience - physicality of actually seeing/trying on/whatever it is, plus instant access to online resources - reviews, info etc that online shopping offers).

Anyway, I'm very curious what people out there will come up with - expect a bit of a round-up of top applications of Google QR code generator in a few months!

What is especially interesting is the way that HTML5 is changing the look and operation of certain websites - such as the specially-optimised version of Amazon.com, which looks and works more like what we'd expect from a smart-phone app rather than a website. (N.B. For those new to HTML5, Smashing Magazine have an excellent introduction). This all works very nicely since most of the work required for such tasks is now handled by your computer's GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) rather than the CPU, which used to be the case.

All in all, it is somewhat of an adjustment for those who have been using the site (Amazon) for some time but don't have a huge amount of smart-phone app experience, though once accustomed it's hard to imagine going back to the previous/current model. For me the big plus is down to a much clearer and cleaner interface, enhanced in IE9 also by nice touches such as the browser 'back' button adapting chameleon-like (but not hiding) to the design scheme of whichever website you're visiting.

Another nice touch from IE9, again enabled by HTML5 is the creation of the favicon bar - whereby users can drag site icons down into the toolbar so that they can then later be launched directly from the desktop. Think of it as a bookmarks bar for the desktop which doesn't require opening the browser first. As Kate Bevan points out in the Guardian, this feature could clutter the desktop pretty quickly, but nonetheless if used sparingly could be a handy tool for saving a few seconds.

So, all this really provides yet more confirmation of the rapid convergence between app and website development seen over the past couple of years (indeed I wouldn't be surprised if there were soon some new terminology to refer to these 'appy' websites). It might seem like an obvious development now, but if I think back to my first mobile phone some ten years ago (the proverbial 'brick' even then) it is astounding to now consider the sheer extent to which mobile devices have revolutionised development and design online.