If you are going to have to wait for a ride anyway, why not do some shopping? No, not on your laptop or that tiny screen of your smartphone – right there on the wall, via virtual aisles on a life-scaled billboard full of products.

First in South Korea thanks to Tesco, and now popping up in Australia and other countries, it works something like this: a range of popular everyday products is displayed on the wall; scan the QR codes of the ones you want and your purchase will be added to a digital shopping cart.

In many cases, your purchases will arrive the next day – in some, they will be waiting for you when you get home, saving you that side trip to the corner store or local supermarket.

If nothing else, this presents an interesting technology-bridging mechanism for those reluctant to shop online. They choose from real products, presented at actual size, in a potentially more familiar mode of browsing than via the internet.

Forgot to grab something to read on the train? If you happen to be in Bucharest, you can snag a volume from their floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall collection of ebook samples with the click of a button (in epub, pdf or even audiobook format).

The hybrid digital/physical library/bookstore project is a collaboration between Humanitas and Vodaphone – a guerrilla marketing campaign highlighting both the power of mobile technology and the offerings of the bookseller.

Browsing, of course, works just like an ordinary book shop: you can scan the full-color posters and pick something to get started while you wait for your ride. And if you enjoy the sample, another button-click brings you to a page where you can buy the full book (one free book is thrown in, for those who do not wish to pay).

This project tackles what is probably the last place anyone expect to find a digital-age intervention: the centuries-old tradition of the mobile and homeless communicating via shorthand markers, left to denote different risks and advantages to illicit living spaces.

From its creators at Free Art & Technology: “These stencils can be understood as a covert markup scheme for urban spaces — providing directions, information, and warnings to digital nomads and other indigenterati. We present these as modern equivalents of the chalk-based “hobo signs” developed by 19th century vagabonds and migratory workers to cope with the difficulty of nomadic life.”  (Hobo signs via Sources: Fran DeLorenzo (left),Wikipedia (right).

But it also goes beyond the conventional messages once conveyed: “Indeed, our set of QR stencils port a number of classic hobo annotations to the QR format (“turn right here”, “dangerous dog”, “food for work”) as well as some new ones, with a nod to warchalking, that are specific to contemporary conditions (“insecure wifi”, “hidden cameras”, “vegans beware”).”

As ingenious as this all is, the question, of course, remains: even in an age where almost everyone has a cellular phone, how many truly nomadic peoples have one? The answer, though, may be: more than we realize.