WASHINGTON – Many travelers still rely on comprehensive printed guidebooks for tourism information. But travelers are also increasingly using mobile technology to plan a trip or find their way around.

Now a technology called QR codes, for Quick Response, offers a way to forge a functional relationship between your guidebook and your smart phone. The codes are already big in Japan, but relatively unknown in the U.S.

QR codes are essentially barcodes that can be scanned by smart phone cameras and other devices. You aim your camera at a QR code on a page in a travel book, for example, and it links to information online, such as a map or directions based on the user’s location. The user can also store information in the phone about the place that’s described on the page.

QR codes can also appear in media other than books. You can scan them off a computer screen. They’ve been put on T-shirts and even billboards.

A new travel book is using QR codes to help readers link to spots around the globe. “Earthbound: A Rough Guide to the World in Pictures” ($30) is a coffee-table book with more than 250 gorgeous photos from all over the world. Each comes with personal insights from the photographer who captured the image, some of which have never before been published.

What’s new in “Earthbound” is the strange black-and-white box next to each image. This is the QR code, looking something like a pixelated alien from the 1970s video game “Space Invaders.” The code offers a link to the location of what’s pictured in the photo, using Google Maps online.

Sounds neat? It is, except for the fact that this emerging technology still has a few bugs.

It took me and an uber-techie colleague about a half-hour of mucking about with our iPhones to get the reader apps working properly. The intro to the book suggests using the free apps 2D sense and NeoReader to scan the QR codes.

Neither of us could get the 2D sense to work reliably, unless we photocopied and blew up the image of the QR code. NeoReader was a bit better, but still a bit wonky.

A Rough Guides spokeswoman acknowledges some problems, especially with earlier generation iPhones, but says the new ones and BlackBerrys perform better.

To be fair, I have the earlier-generation iPhone and its camera doesn’t focus well on close-up objects. NeoReader started working pretty well once I started scanning the image from a foot or more away with good light and the page carefully flattened. The new iPhone 3GS did perform much better.

Once we were able to scan the codes, we were rewarded with a Google map of the spot where the photo was taken. You can look at a satellite image, which was pretty for some of the outdoor spots like Parque Nacional Volcan Irazu in Costa Rica or Shipwreck Bay in Greece.

You can also bookmark the locations so that if you ever get to the region, your phone will give you directions to visit the spot. For now, though, it seems to be of fairly limited utility.

But offering technology that marries books and smart phones is a big step. Guidebooks could start including QR codes for all kinds of useful information. Want to see how to get to the Louvre from your hotel in Paris and store hours and admission information? Scan a code. Want to add a phone number for that quaint little restaurant in Florence to your contacts so you can leave the guidebook home? Instead of tapping out the number on your tiny keyboard, scan a code.

Scanning the codes in a guidebook for your favorite listings is a bit like folding the pages down for quick reference, or even printing out pages from a tourism Web site. But your smart phone stores the data so you don’t have to carry all that paper around, and it can also add information that’s not in the book, like directions.

“We’re really testing the waters,” said Rough Guides Design Manager Scott Stickland, speaking by phone from London. “QR is still very much an underground thing here.”

But he hopes the technology catches on. That’s why he really pushed to use the codes in the book. He foresees a future where a reader can scan a few codes and leave a book at home or in the hotel room, while accessing user-generated content, maps, contact information, podcasts or other features on the go with a mobile device.

The technology is moving fast. Stickland says he now recommends the QuickMark code-scanning app, but it wasn’t mentioned in the book because the app wasn’t available when the book went to press. Now you can buy it in the iTunes app store for 99 cents.

QR may be the vehicle to bridge that split between print and mobile. Stickland says at Rough Guides it’s “universally agreed our guides need to do more to integrate online and printed content.” Though for now, Stickland says there are no “concrete plans” to incorporate QR in new guidebooks until the standard is more accepted.

Even if QR fizzles, the book makes a nice read for the armchair traveler. As Stickland says, it culls the finest images of food, people, adventure, nature and other themes from Rough Guides’ rich library of more than 120,000 photos.

DALLAS – Southwest Airlines Co. has agreed to settle a shareholder lawsuit that grew out of safety violations at the carrier and will pay the investors’ lawyers $3.5 million.

Southwest disclosed the proposed settlement in a regulatory filing made Friday. A hearing on the deal was scheduled for Dec. 7 in state district court in Dallas.

The lawsuit was filed in August 2008, after the Federal Aviation Administration announced it would fine Southwest $10.2 million for operating some planes that had not gone through a required inspection for structural soundness. Southwest settled by agreeing to pay a $7.5 million penalty.

The investors said the airline’s leaders failed to protect the interests of shareholders.

Southwest declined to comment Monday, but in the settlement document the airline officials said they “believe that they acted properly at all times” and settled the case to avoid a long and costly fight.

Besides paying $3.5 million for the plaintiffs’ legal expenses, the Dallas-based company agreed to add safety-related employees throughout the company and increase training for maintenance workers for at least two years.

In exchange, the plaintiffs agreed to drop claims against Southwest and several directors and executives, including CEO Gary Kelly and former CEO Herb Kelleher. Southwest also said in the Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it agreed to make reforms in governance practices.

The lawsuit was filed by the Carbon County, Pa., Employee Retirement System and Mark Cristello. The plaintiffs’ attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

Southwest also faces class-action lawsuits filed by passengers who flew on the airline while it operated planes that hadn’t gone through all the required checks. They charge the airline was reckless. Southwest says the claims lack merit.

The nation’s leading discount airline has faced other safety issues. Last month, the FAA gave Southwest until Dec. 24 to replace unapproved parts that were installed on dozens of planes. Southwest blamed a subcontractor, and it stopped using the company.

In June, a Southwest jet had to make an emergency landing when a foot-long hole opened in the roof. There were no injuries.

Southwest shares fell 4 cents, to $8.80 on Monday.

ROMULUS, Mich. – Detroit Metropolitan Airport says Delta and Southwest airlines are adding new routes next year, while a third carrier will resume flights in November.

Delta will start nonstop service next June to Seoul, South Korea, and Hong Kong. Weekly flights from Metro to Shanghai will be increased from five to seven.

Southwest plans daily nonstop flights to Denver beginning March 14.

USA3000 is resuming flights to Fort Myers, Fla., and Cancun, Mexico on Nov. 21, followed by Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, on Nov. 29. Flights will be added on select days to Montego Bay, Jamaica, and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

USA3000 suspended Detroit service in April.

Airport officials estimate the annual economic impact of the new routes to Southeast Michigan at $41 million.

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On the Net:

Detroit Metropolitan Airport: http://metroairport.com