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The Curious Comeback of the Dreaded QR Code
- fhood 9y agoCan someone explain to me what the advantages of QR codes are over bar codes or other similar methods?
- cmrx64 9y ago1. Denser (ie, more information per unit area) 2. More redundant (ie, more surface area can be destroyed and still be able to recover the original message)
- andrewla 9y agoThe confusing thing about this question is that "other similar methods" includes QR codes [1] -- they're just a generalization of 1-dimensional bar codes to a 2-dimensional matrix, with some error correction and alignment information to make scanning them theoretically more reliable. They also have native support for some data types, like URLs. Other than that, it's mostly that they have some traction. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode#Matrix_.282D.29_barcodes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode#Matrix_.282D.29_barcod...
- taeric 9y agoI'm assuming the largest advantage is just the amount of data they can hold. One of the top google results[1] indicates that 1d bar codes can hold ~100 characters, while 2d ones can hold ~2000 characters. There is also a bit of artistic freedom you can do with the 2d ones. They really aren't as ugly as the 1d ones. Especially if you use them to "frame" something. Note, still not pretty, per se. Just not as ugly. [1] http://support.idautomation.com/Barcode-Learning/How-much-data-can-a-barcode-hold/_2148 http://support.idautomation.com/Barcode-Learning/How-much-da...
- devopsproject 9y ago* data density (up to 100 times more than barcodes) * built in error correction (partially marred qr codes can still be used) * skinable\customizable (embed your logo, change colors, etc ) * 360 degree scanning capability Barcodes still have their place but the QR code does have some unique properties
- pmlnr 9y agoIt can store various data formats, eg. vcard. You scan it and save every phone number, email, etc immediately. Or WiFi credetials, including both the network and the password: scan, tick, connected.
- dheera 9y agoThe amount of information they can hold is especially important in the case of bank transactions. Alipay and Wechat Pay (in China) have QR codes that change every minute. The merchant transaction has to be performed with the current QR code. It's basically a poor man's substitute for the encrypted handshake provided by contactless payment protocols. If someone got your payment QR code they could only abuse it for 1 minute. I do dislike the use of QR codes for static data, such as a username on business cards and posters. From a design standpoint it looks horrible and busy. I wish those apps had the ability to recognize a logo instead. Or even just a UI to scan and OCR a text username on a business card.
- nayuki 9y agoQR codes are much more information-dense than 1D barcodes. Try encoding a string like "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" (43 ASCII characters) using these tools and seeing how much space they take up: * https://www.nayuki.io/page/1d-barcode-generator-javascript https://www.nayuki.io/page/1d-barcode-generator-javascript * https://www.nayuki.io/page/qr-code-generator-library https://www.nayuki.io/page/qr-code-generator-library
- lightbyte 9y agoSurprised they didn't mention cryptocurrencies at all here. Scanning QR codes to enter an address when making a transaction is pretty much the only feasible option I know of. Manually entering a very long random string is too much of a hassle, especially if you'd want to do real-world transactions.
- rsync 9y ago"Scanning QR codes to enter an address when making a transaction is pretty much the only feasible option I know of. Manually entering a very long random string is too much of a hassle, especially if you'd want to do real-world transactions." You can use an Oh By Code.[1] From the "HN FAQ":[2] "You don't need any software or tools to create them. You don't need a reader or an app to read them. You can write them down anywhere with any pencil, pen, chalk, etc. As of the launch of 0x.co, there is no longer any reason to ever use a QR code again. You're welcome." [1] https://0x.co https://0x.co [2] There is a FAQ but also a "HN FAQ" with more technical, implementation-minded Q&A: https://0x.co/hnfaq.html https://0x.co/hnfaq.html
- teddyh 9y agoThat’s basically an URL shortener without the URL part. A centralized service to store all your codes and the logs of all accesses. In short, a twitter for pastebin. No thanks.
- pishpash 9y agoStore all your messages with a random site, what could possibly go wrong?
- rsync 9y ago"Store all your messages with a random site, what could possibly go wrong?" We don't think of it as storage - although you can indeed use it as such. We think of it as messaging. Oh By gives you a way to send messages to unknown people at unknown future dates which don't require any special tooling (apps) to decode. You can just take a piece of chalk and write your message on the sidewalk. As for longevity, I think we have a good track record having run rsync.net for 16 years now.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- digi_owl 9y agoMaybe i am completely out of the WXSW loop but when did QR become a joke? To me it always seemed like a nice and simple piece of tech.
- aluhut 9y agoI don't even understand the "comback". As far as I've seen it, they've been and still are quite popular in Asia.
- mrspeaker 9y agoLike, forever: http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/ http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/ They just never caught on in the west - but for a while at least they were popular in Japan (maybe they still are). For me if I see a QR code and there's also a printed url then I'll just google it faster than finding my qr app. If it was more complex data than that it might be useful but I'm looking in my QR code history and I don't see them being used for anything but simple links.
- astrodust 9y agoI know someone that would actually go out of their way to scan those QR codes for contests for the simple reason that nobody ever does and they'd often win prizes by default.
- toinetoine 9y agoAnd China also, the Weechat app uses them for so much: paying at restaurants, adding contacts, etc.
- pmlnr 9y agoSo... silicon valley is copying China? Nice. BTW QR codes are awesome, no sarcasm.
- pishpash 9y agoPhone OS's not having built-in QR code readers suppressed the usefulness of QR codes. It was maybe for security reasons, if so that also points to a problem with the protocol.
- digi_owl 9y agoThe only way it would be a security risk would be if it tossed the content right into a browser or similar. It it was presented in plain text for the user to see before taking any action, there would be no more risk than any other printed URL (unless the very scanning app has issues, but then that is a very different rabbit hole).
- rmwaite 9y agoiOS 11 will include QR code support in the native camera app.
- digi_owl 9y agoHeh, like a needed another reason for why i don't touch tumblr with a 10 foot pole...
- icebraining 9y agoFine: https://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.blogspot.com/ https://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.blogspot.com/ Don't like Blogger either? https://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.wordpress.com/ https://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.wordpress.com/
- digi_owl 9y agoDid i strike a nerve?
- pwinnski 9y agoWe get it. You don't like Tumblr. Really, we get it. It's completely irrelevant to the fact that QR codes have been a punchline in the west since shortly after their introduction, but yes, we understand that you don't like Tumblr. That's the takeaway.
- digi_owl 9y agoNot really Tumblr, but what it represents. A focus on form over function, for lack of a better explanation. The west have gotten a very warped idea of "social" these days. Where we will decide of we accept some tech or not depending on how it makes us look on the social sphere more than how it will help us in our daily lives. Tumblr as a service seems like a focal point of this warping, by way of shaming everything "we" don't approve of.
- scrollaway 9y agoI flagged your posts because you're either trolling or actively trying to derail a conversation about QR codes to be about how you dislike Tumblr and "what it represents". Get a hold of yourself.
- nayuki 9y agoThis article gets many things wrong. First, I don't understand why they call QR codes "dreaded". They are simply a standard for communication, not unlike writing down an http:// http:// URL in human-readable text. > Don't look now, but QR codes have begun to creep back. They have different names now—Snap Codes and Spotify Codes and Messenger Codes and Other Things Codes—and a much improved sense of style, but the idea hasn't changed. Snapchat ID codes and Facebook Messenger ID codes are NOT based on QR Code technology. They don't look remotely the same. My guess is that they are proprietary and have no published standard. Because of their geometry and layout, they both probably have much lower raw information density than QR codes. What's funny is that in China QR codes are commonly called by the generic name of 二維條碼 (two-dimensional barcodes), but the Wired article makes the opposite mistake of calling every 2D barcode as "QR Code". However, note that WeChat/Weixin/微信 2D barcodes are valid QR codes. (The picture in the middle is treated as a correctable error.)
- kpxxx 9y agoI'm going to give the article a pass on this. They explain the genesis of the Snapchat dot codes. They don't explicitly say that the FB and snapchat codes are based on QR, they do genericize the term QR a bit, but that is all. The problem is of course barcode isn't quite right either. The term 2D or Matrix codes never really caught on (of course the FB symbol isn't a matrix code either). Further, the "dreaded" is a bit of poorly worded editorializing. But I recall a few years ago when they started popping up, that whily maybe not dreaded, people thought they were a stupid gimmick (for all the reasons mentioned in the article) and many times intrusive or tasteless. Dreaded similar to fucking blue LEDs. That is, to say, Blue LEDs are useful, but it was damn fucking annoying when a bright one was put on damn everything they didn't belong.
- aphextron 9y ago>They are simply a standard for communication, not unlike writing down an http:// http:// URL in human-readable text. So why not encode that data in a human readable format? I think it's the same argument as a binary storage format vs. plaintext. Sure you gain a slight bit of efficiency on the application side of things. But the decreased portability and ease of use is usually not worth the trade-off.
- oobey 9y agoOur software uses QR codes for inventory tracking. They're absolutely wonderful - you can store loads of data in a format that's very easily parsed by handheld scanning devices. So much data that you can completely do away with having to call out to a central database for item information, as you do with bar codes. QR codes are great, and I never understood why they're treated as such a joke.
- monocasa 9y agoWe were just in the the trough of disillusionment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle
- crispyambulance 9y agoI think they're great too, but they don't hold more info (per unit area) than other types of symbology like, for example, datamatrix. If you really want to stuff tons of data in the symbol itself, you need PDF417. That can be scanned by a specialized line scanner (admittedly not convenient for phone cameras) QR codes often encode URL's/URI's and the application typically hits up a database upon scanning them just like any other inventory barcode.
- nayuki 9y agoIt is not clear whether these statements are true. * QR codes mandate a minimum of 15% area used for error correction and a maximum of 60%. * Data Matrix codes mandate a minimum of 0% area used for error correction and a maximum of 50%. * The amount of overhead in QR codes (finders, timing, alignment) is probably in the same ballpark as Data Matrix codes (black lines, checkered lines). * PDF417 codes demand low vertical resolution (e.g. 15 thick steps) but high horizontal resolution (e.g. 200 thin steps). They are hard to scan on a phone camera. Although this thick-thin design is appropriate for line scanners, the asymmetry in horizontal-vertical information density leads to poor information density overall and higher susceptibility to damage and unreadable barcodes. Square primitive blocks make sense because they are more spatially balanced.
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- drawkbox 9y agoQR codes are making a blip comeback mainly because people have their cameras on more for augmented reality and computer vision will be more and more used. Before you had to actually open up an app to scan one, now you might already be in an app that is constantly scanning for AR targets, UPC, QR codes etc. In a few apps we have done that use AR for retail they look for AR targets/trackers, cloud targets, marks, UPC, qr codes, and more. Along those lines, Vuforia AR has VuMarks[1] that are replacements for their framemarker targets (similar to QR codes) that are further on the mark detection. With augmented experiences we'll definitely be scanning more with cameras already on in the future. So there will be more marks/scannables out there. [1] https://library.vuforia.com/articles/Training/VuMark https://library.vuforia.com/articles/Training/VuMark
- nlawalker 9y ago>> QR codes, it turns out, were just ahead of their time. No they weren't, they were given a bad reputation because their use in ad campaigns, where they were exclusively deployed as a tool to con people into actively viewing more ads, dwarfed other uses in both number and visibility to the average person. Google did exactly the same thing to the reputation of its own product (Glass) in a similar way - by trying to convince people that it was going to be something that everyone was going to wear all the time. It makes sense that they're becoming more popular now that they're not being used in ads so much anymore, and instead being used for games and other features that actually do things users want to do.
- petraeus 9y agoHow can something that never left .. come back?
- mmjaa 9y agoContext. They're not so wide-spread in some countries (perhaps the America-centric countries) and yet still quite extant throughout the rest of the world. Local context is everything.
- shpx 9y agoQR codes are just (ugly) reminders that we still haven't figured out how to do optical character recognition. You're scanning a human-readable QR code right now.