A Universal Information Code (UIC) resolves the encoding limitation associated with the known 2D bar code format. The UIC includes at least a type field and an index field. The type field indicates application type and format of other fields. The index field provides an index to access a website, categories of information, keyword of information, index or link to associated information and expansion information. The UIC further includes optionally a text description field and an authorization field. The text description field can be used to include a textual description of the website. The authorization field can be used to store password or public key. A mobile terminal device equipped with camera can fetch an image of the 2D bar code in UIC format and then extract related fields for interactive information exchange with a database.