** Update ** it would seem at least one high profile retail outlet - Harrods is going to trial QR codes.
QR codes will soon be embedding audio directly (images supported too).
When you use your cameraphone/barcode scanner app to view the QR code, it will playback the audio snippet directly (in addition to supporting URL/text as per today). It's not clear how long the audio-snippet can be...
More mobile noise pollution (yikes)?
QR codes don't seem to be that popular here in Europe (yet) as the article states and this recent report suggests .
Related but slightly different concept here on audio barcodes as NTT docomo have called them.