16 ms·

JAB Code – A high-capacity 2D color bar code

170 points by Confiks 8y ago

pavel_lishin 8y ago
How well does it hold up in adverse conditions, like outdoors in bad weather, or dark light, or a drunk person trying to take the photo?
- tyingq 8y ago
  It doesn't appear to have anything to correct for orientation like the 3 corners in a QR code. Edit: ok, found the docs/description of the finder patterns: https://imgur.com/a/ZXXLtQ0 https://imgur.com/a/ZXXLtQ0
  - gugagore 8y ago
    > A JAB Code contains one master symbol and optionally multiple slave symbols. Master symbol contains four finder patterns located at the corners of the symbol, while slave symbol contains no finder pattern
lol768 8y ago
Tried a few times with the "Scan" demo on https://jabcode.org/create/ https://jabcode.org/create/ using Firefox for Android, but it appears to just get stuck displaying a loading spinner. Seems to work in Chrome, so not sure what's wrong with the implementation to make it not work.
- iceprey 8y ago
  To add to this, I am getting vague error messages with any text of a certain length (longer than 100 characters or so) if I tweak any, or at least several, of the advanced settings.
- sbugert 8y ago
  Thanks for reporting, Firefox for Android should work now.
douglaswlance 8y ago
Every screen and printer will display/print colors differently. This is not a good idea.
- LeoPanthera 8y ago
  Every HN comment thread is full of armchair critics. Maybe the designer actually thought of this! If the colors are quantized into a constellation, even significant error could be corrected.
  - flipp3r 8y ago
    Well, I hope the designer accounted for multiple colors failing to displayer properly. The pink and red are impossible to discern for me. My bank uses colored QR style codes and they're impossible to use with (very common) blue light filters active in the evening hours.
  - aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
    Except if said colors fade over time or change their hue due to UV exposure like most pigments used for printing.
    - ygra 8y ago
      QR codes printed on thermal paper also fade over the course of a year and would be unreadable. There are always uncorrectable adverse conditions.
      - aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
        Sure. And if you light the paper on fire even 24pt Helvetica becomes unreadable. But I’m sure you too feel that the failure modes of this colored barcode form a proper subset of the failure modes of its monochromatic counterpart.
        naikrovek 8y ago
Crazyontap 8y ago
In case anyone missed it, a very interesting link explaining how QR codes work was posted on HN a few days ago[1]. I wish there was some explanation like this on this JAB code and how exactly it gives high capacity over the b/w code. [1] https://www.nayuki.io/page/creating-a-qr-code-step-by-step https://www.nayuki.io/page/creating-a-qr-code-step-by-step
- sarahmike 8y ago
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- vanderZwan 8y ago
  Well, there is this: > The technical specification of the barcode is available as BSI TR03137 - Part 2[0] It's apparently research done by the German Federal Office for Information Security. [0] https://www.bsi.bund.de/EN/Publications/TechnicalGuidelines/TR03137/BSITR03137.html https://www.bsi.bund.de/EN/Publications/TechnicalGuidelines/...
- Dorothysd 8y ago
  She has been unemployed for eight months but last month her income with big fat bonus was over Bucks 9000 just working on the laptop for a few hours. <3 :) https://www.cyberjobsonline.com https://www.cyberjobsonline.com
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
xhruso00 8y ago
People print codes on glossy papers or try to scan them in various light conditions. This is not alternative for outdoor placement.
- CharlesW 8y ago
  All barcodes can be printed on glossy papers, so that's not a unique challenge. Various light conditions aren't terribly difficult to account for, especially when known colors are involved (as they are here).
jasonjmcghee 8y ago
Demo (https://jabcode.org/create/ https://jabcode.org/create/) worked on the first example I tried, then I tried using advanced settings and it threw an "Error Something went wrong" every time. This was in Chrome.
- nneonneo 8y ago
  With Advanced Settings you control the format and capacity of the code, so if you specify too many characters or too high of an error correction level it will fail (with that rather unhelpful error). Try increasing the version (which adds more pixels in the X or Y direction), or adding a few slave blocks. (The above is based on my quick exploration with it on Safari, YMMV)
- aidenn0 8y ago
  Without the advanced settings, it seems to automatically grow the code as needed. You need to manually add "slave" boxes though (to the right of the sliders). The interface is nonintuitive.
- nine_k 8y ago
  It seems to stop working at particular text lengths. Sort of a bummer when you want to see how much text it can accommodate in a square, compared to a QR code.
sarahmike 8y ago
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Dorothysd 8y ago
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gf263 8y ago
> master symbol and slave symbol nooo
- tomcooks 8y ago
  Laughed hard
gregschlom 8y ago
Reminds me of Microsoft's High-Capacity Color Barcode: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/high-capacity-color-barcodes-hccb/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/high-capaci... Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode
- brink 8y ago
  Microsoft comes up with a lot of neat little ideas. And also some bad ones. But mostly good ones.
  - Twirrim 8y ago
    Their "Household of the future" lab consistently shows off amazing tech that could be world changing, but the number that actually seem to come to production always seems remarkably low.
ThePadawan 8y ago
How does this relate to the standard of the German ministry for Information Security (BSI) linked at the bottom of the README? Note that isn't just one of many independent implementations as both the repository links to BSI and vice versa.
omershapira 8y ago
I wonder if the 'Master'/'Slave' terminology is necessary here? Aside from being problematic, does it really describe the setup more than 'Primary'/'Secondary'?
- jml7c5 8y ago
  Is it problematic outside of the US? That said, possibly not the most immediately illustrative choice of terms; master/slave usually implies who's in charge, not a spatial relationship.
  - CharlesW 8y ago
    Slavery/human trafficking is not a US-only thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century
  - vanderZwan 8y ago
    > master/slave usually implies who's in charge, not a spatial relationship. Spatial relationship aside, there are plenty of less problematic ways to depict who is in charge.
- openbasic 8y ago
  Why is that problematic?
  - jml7c5 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master/slave_(technology)#Terminology_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master/slave_(technology)#Term...
  - tomp 8y ago
    Because people cannot separate the abstract concept of slavery to the actual historical happening. Personally, I want to be a master to my mechanical slaves (tools, dishwashers, computers, robots) and can't wait for a future where machine-slavery is so pervasive that no humans need to work anymore.
Mistri 8y ago
Is it just me or is that uglier than a QR code?
- m1sta_ 8y ago
  Just you.
- guitarbill 8y ago
  on a phone with average brightness, it's okay. on a big monitor, it hurts my eyes looking at it, like green text on a red background. so i genuinely hope these never get used.
skrebbel 8y ago
My bank uses some colored pixelcode not unlike this one. I scan a code on my screen using a little device that I insert the bank card into. It's cool, it works well and it's fancy, but every time I do banking I have to turn off my computer's "night light" mode. I assume lots of people use color filters for various good reasons. Are these codes resisent to that? Else I'd truly prefer oldschool monochrome QR codes, to be honest.
- lifthrasiir 8y ago
  I've seen worse: some machine had a built-in camera recognizing QR code, but it couldn't really control exposure so I had to manually set my phone's brightness low to get the code detected. Quick Response? Screw that.
- staticfloat 8y ago
  This is pretty easily fixed by doing white balance correction. One piece of the barcode is always kept white, and it is used for color calibration. assuming the color transformation is constant across the entire code (which is the case in your example) you can undo some pretty large color shifts.
gregmac 8y ago
One of the nice 'features' of QR codes is they're instantly recognizable as QR codes due to the 3 registration marks, and so it's obvious you could pull out your phone and scan one (not that anyone does that). JAB codes just look like a jumble of colored pixels -- it's not obvious it's encoded data, if you were to see this "in the wild". It kind of misses another potential feature, which is registration marks could also establish a baseline for colors, which a reader/scanner could then use to compensate for differences in color reproduction (due to printing / screen settings / etc).
- neetdeth 8y ago
  Technical specification is here: https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/BSI/Publications/TechGuidelines/TR03137/BSI-TR-03137_Part2.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2 https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/BSI/Publicat... Every JAB code has four registration patterns in the corners, as well as multiple color pallets at fixed locations.
  - rwmj 8y ago
    I think OP's point was that humans can't recognize those features. Edit: I should have said untrained humans.
    - ivanbakel 8y ago
      OP did also say that the registration marks had machine benefits, for which it's worth noting that they are defined, even if humans can't spot them.
    - neetdeth 8y ago
      I can recognize those features. Sure, you need to look for them, but why would anyone care to? Surely after encountering only a few RGB codes the average person will have no trouble inferring that a jumble of colored blocks against a white background is likely to be encoded data. Same "training process" as needed for QR codes - although in this case the quiet zone is not needed, so you _could_ use these in a deliberately obscure fashion if you wanted, which isn't a shortcoming.
PhrosTT 8y ago
What's the capacity of this thing? Don't see it anywhere obvious.
- 1ris 8y ago
  It's on page 13 of the spec. Up to 27kb.
  - jungler 8y ago
    It's actually indefinite by adding more slave blocks, the spec example shows how this works up to 60 blocks, but the algorithm holds beyond that.
moonsun 8y ago
I am trying to think of possible use cases. If you came across an image like at https://moonsun.gitlab.io https://moonsun.gitlab.io would you stop to scan it using your phone?
Macuyiko 8y ago
Yet again another barcode / QR proposal. Can't speak for the Americas, but here in Europe QR codes aren't used that much, I feel, except maybe for mobile payments. Compare this with China, where QR codes are in literally every store, each taxi driver has a printed one nearby and even street food cards use them to pay. I can't see this one becoming popular, given how many are printed on glossy / dirty paper (often using black and white printers as well). I am amazed though how well the standard QR code works in most cases, even with everyone adding an icon in the middle of it (and basically removing error correcting redundancy). An interesting QR thing I picked up last time I was there is how circular QR codes are becoming more popular, see e.g. https://irf.fhnw.ch/bitstream/handle/11654/17880/Fokusreport_stamm.pdf?sequence=1 https://irf.fhnw.ch/bitstream/handle/11654/17880/Fokusreport... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShotCode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShotCode for earlier approaches but WeChat has started using its own thing, kind of like Facebook and Snapchat are doing: https://chinachannel.co/wechat-launches-new-mini-program-qrcodes/ https://chinachannel.co/wechat-launches-new-mini-program-qrc...
- ravenstine 8y ago
  I think it's the same for the Americas, but just because the average person doesn't use QR codes very much that doesn't mean that such technologies aren't being used in ways that aren't widely reported. For instance, I know someone who placed small barely-visible QR codes in videos that get passed off to editors so that each clip and frame number(and other info) can be detected programmatically despite editing software stripping out metadata. I think QR is one of those things that solves very niche problems that even the average engineer might not be made aware of. People are quick to point out "nobody uses QR" but it's not exactly fair to expect ubiquity from something like that. My response would be the same for those in this thread saying "people can't recognize JAB codes like they can with QR." Well, those who find a use for JAB codes are probably going to be the people using them 99% of the time(maybe more than QR because of data density), thus they're almost certainly know to know how to recognize them.
  - michaelmior 8y ago
    Another interesting use case: Crowdmark[0], a digital grading platform uses QR codes printed on test pages to match these up to the correct student when they are scanned without the need for any manual matching process. [0] https://crowdmark.com/ https://crowdmark.com/
Confiks 8y ago
To copy a comment from a Github issue [1], comparing the different implementations: - CRONTO, PM-Code and HCCB and AuthPaper are proprietary. CRONTO has attracted some usage mainly by banks, PM-Code looks like vaporware, AuthPaper seems inactive and HCCB is dead [2]. - CobraKing seems to be a 2012 research project, unmaintained - HCC2D seems to be mainly academic exploration Papers and results similar to HCC2D pop up periodically (i.e. [3]), but unfortunately nobody has released any (experimental) source code. It quite frustrating. For example, AuthPaper implemented their solution on top of ZXing, but they never contributed back. They apparently thought they could make some money out of it, but now that their venture is inactive, their ZXing modification is in limbo as well. From my one-hour research, that makes JAB Code the only actually FOSS implementation of a high capacity 'barcode'. If you know of other (FOSS) implementations, please let me know. I'm quite surprised JAB Code has existed for so long in a fairly production-ready state without attracting much attention. It deserves much more, looking at the rest of the field. [1] https://github.com/jabcode/jabcode/issues/2 https://github.com/jabcode/jabcode/issues/2 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode#Discontinuation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode#Di... [3] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/95c7/fe455a084b0f0ce9923e996652156c1f7998.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/95c7/fe455a084b0f0ce9923e99...
- jf 8y ago
  Thanks for doing this research! I've long dreamed of making a "print to binary to paper" backup system, but all the 2D barcodes I considered had patent encumbrances.
  - fallat 8y ago
    This was the motivation behind what I tried to make: https://github.com/lf94/blots https://github.com/lf94/blots
    - ZenPsycho 8y ago
      related: https://github.com/cyphar/paperback https://github.com/cyphar/paperback
divan 8y ago
I wonder what throughput it can give when used as an animated sequence of codes? I experimented with animated QRs for data transfer last week and the real maximum I’ve achieved was around 9KB/s. https://divan.github.io/posts/animatedqr https://divan.github.io/posts/animatedqr Using colored high-capacity encoding should yield much better results, given the decoder is as fast as QR one.
- specialist 8y ago
  Cool. How does Apple's iPhone-to-Watch pairing animated graphic work? Maybe their technique has higher bandwidth.
  - divan 8y ago
    Unlikely. I skimmed through both patents [1][2], and I don't recall any numbers on throughput. But the general principle is super cool – they analyze the change in luminance of the picture, and chrominance can be whatever you wish (so they can replace particle cloud with any custom animation). The idea is that human eye is much more perceptible to changes in color than to changes in luminance, but for image processing software it's quite different - they can decode luminance changes quite reliably :) So my guess is that Apple's approach is optimized for coolness, rather than transfer speed. [1] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=2&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=(235%2F469.CCLS.+AND+20150505.PD.)&OS=ccl/235/469+and+isd/5/5/2015&RS=(CCL/235/469+AND+ISD/20150505) http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H... [2] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=(235%2F469.CCLS.+AND+20150505.PD.)&OS=ccl/235/469+and+isd/5/5/2015&RS=(CCL/235/469+AND+ISD/20150505) http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...
  - paulgb 8y ago
    Speaking of screen-to-watch data transfer, the Timex Data Link watch somehow accomplished this in the mid-90s. There must have been some dark magic to make it work on a watch-battery powered processor at the time. https://youtu.be/2VmtPaiOBwI https://youtu.be/2VmtPaiOBwI
rek32 8y ago
Use this very danger control of man. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rishibhakat.pallavi.sammohancontrol https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rishibhaka...
qume 8y ago
Cameras only see one colour per pixel (i.e. Bayer colour filter array). Because our eyes are not so acute at resolving colour compared to luminescence this tradeoff works well. But in this context I'm not sure at a pixel level how much 'extra' information is added by _removing_ red/green from the blue pixels, green/blue from the red etc. In other words, if the image came from a digital camera, to actually stuff more information into the same number of pixels, colour may or may not help. In any case working with the raw CFA bayer source image would almost certainly be beneficial over interpreting the image after it has been converted to a normal RGB image (losing information in the process)
- JdeBP 8y ago
  Information is not encoded in pixels, it is encoded in so-called modules, which are more than 1 pixel in either dimension (and square when printed).
- neetdeth 8y ago
  This is an interesting point, but it assumes perfect optics. If the image is slightly out of focus, I think three lower resolution images in different spectral regions is a big win.
  - qume 8y ago
    I think it depends on the context - if you're designing the whole system from bar code to camera, I'm not sure that the color will help. But in that case you can assume close to perfect optics and I'm not sure if you would find an improvement or the opposite over a monochrome setup with better SNR. On the other hand if you're stuck with things like mobile phone cameras, and can only control the bar code side, then Id imagine you'd see some improvements as you say. An interesting middle ground would be if you could get the raw image from the sensor before a generic debayer algorithm gets applied. Good luck, keep up the good work... i've worked commercially on optical barcode systems and it's a super interesting topic (tho looks like my post has been downvoted out of existence so maybe you wont see this).
    - 8y ago
tsumnia 8y ago
A what point is someone just going to reinvent Piet [1]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language#Piet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language#...
JdeBP 8y ago
There is more information at https://www.ident.one/de/2018/07/30/just-another-barcode-jab-code/ https://www.ident.one/de/2018/07/30/just-another-barcode-jab... .
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
lettergram 8y ago
Seems similar to my ChromaTags approach from 2015: https://austingwalters.com/chromatags/ https://austingwalters.com/chromatags/ My post goes a bit into more detail on how it works, and why for instance - the given colors were chosen. It appears they too use the Lab color space for instance.
- kbaker 8y ago
  I don't think they use the Lab color space, except if you define your own colors to use in the palette, did you see a reference to it? From their encoding spec: > In order to optimize the decoding of JAB Code, the used colors shall be so distinguishable as possible. Therefore, the used colors shall keep a distance from each other in the RGB color space cube > In case of 256-color-mode, the color channel R and G take eight values, 0, 36, 73, 109, 146, 182, 219 and 255, and the color channel B takes four values, 0, 85, 170 and 255, which will totally generate 256 colors. Which is too bad, because your idea of using Lab with ChromaTags to enable quick and accurate finding of the symbol was a really insightful technique. The decoding algorithm they suggest seems like it would be slow, and their use of RGB seems like a whole bunch of issues due to color-selective fading, shadows, damage, lighting, incorrect printer calibration, etc.
nimbius 8y ago
for those decrying the limited use of 2d barcodes in the US or in europe, you've never set foot in a manufacturing environment. 2d barcodes are used for cradle-to-grave inventory tracking by systems like Glovia and SAP. everything from transmission gears to soda pop are tagged during manufacture with numerous 2d barcodes that change at different stations, and at different times. it doesnt matter what your new standard claims to achieve, it is useless without industry adoption. Toyota, Honda, Yamaha, Ford, Dell, and countless other manufacturing titans have invested collective billions into the QR implementations of their factories and arent going to re-tool just because your standard has colors. QR is also massively resilient to failure. Try this experiment: cut a QR code in half, try to read it. It will succeed. This resilience is pivotal in harsh environments and especially during international/trans oceanic shipping. black and white QR can be engraved on shipping containers and is resistant to corrosion, solvents, and the environment around it. QR codes are regularly burned at thousands of degrees as part of the heat treatment process for hardened steel, and still perform. Vision systems for forklifts and robotic cranes at shipping yards (most are robotic yards these days) rely on near/far vision systems developed by Intermec and other companies to read a code the size of a postage stamp from up to 150 meters away.
- crispyambulance 8y ago
  2D barcodes such as QR and datamatrix certainly have their place, but I wouldn't say they're "massively resilient" to failure. The codes use reed-solomon ECC and the symbology spec has different levels of error tolerance ranging up to a max of ~30% errors. That's certainly robust but it still requires a controlled optical setup to avoid operator frustration. Sometimes, in some applications, a nice big 1D barcode is better. Your 150 meter postage stamp example is an extreme use case that requires a lot of setup to work properly. This color barcode appears to be an effort from a respected institution to increase information density. It doesn't have to be immediately accepted by major manufacturers to succeed. It just has to solve some problems for some applications. I think it's a compelling new symbology. I work in manufacturing too.
  - imhoguy 8y ago
    What if we add color or even UV/IR to an existing QR code just to increase data redundancy? Backward-compatibility FTW!
accosine 8y ago
The website https://jabcode.org/ https://jabcode.org/ gets a solid 100 in Lighthouse - NICE!
specialist 8y ago
Is there a "human readable" bar code variation? I want something that's both scannable and typeable. One use case is those placards for artworks at museums and galleries. I want to print something that's both easy to scan and easy to jot down.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Is there a "human readable" bar code variation? Like a UPC code? Those have the contents printed right underneath.
reaperducer 8y ago
Somewhat off topic, but does anyone know the name of the crazy circular moving barcode thing that Apple uses to pair an Apple Watch with an iPhone?
PostOnce 8y ago
Imagine downloading a manifesto or something from a protest sign in a newspaper or on TV. Imagine downloading a working application from a barcode (perhaps assuming you have the "reader" app which includes a set of software libraries to do some of the heavy lifting / batteries included) -- gameboy did it. It might be useful in a disaster, or an oppressive regime scenario, but at worst, it would be fun. 3D models? Retro game console with games distributed on paper? My imagination is limited, but I have a feeling that barcodes are something waiting to meet some newly-possible potential with the advent of handheld scanners and very high capacity barcodes. We tried VR and PDAs and cellphones and stuff in the late 80s/early 90s, but it wasnt until the 2010s they became something really useful; I wonder if barcodes will find some new life in the future, now that more capable and available hardware exists.
zmix 8y ago
So, how many bytes can this encode? I found no reference for that.
theclaw 8y ago
An eight-colour code does not seem smart for printed codes where most printers use only four inks. A colour code using cyan, magenta, yellow, white and black might be more reliable (although yellow could easily be confused with white). The PDF suggests 256-colour codes are supported, but that would mean luminosity is a factor, and I can't see how that would ever be reliable if the code is intended to be scanned with a camera.
- ttsda 8y ago
  The codes have palettes embedded to adjust to different lighting and ink.
- ZenPsycho 8y ago
  Yellow and magenta are also generally fugitive. Meaning that, over time, due to UV exposure, the yellow will completely fade, followed by magenta, and all you're left with is cyan and black. You'll see this in shops with advertising posters in their front window that haven't been changed in a long time.
dymk 8y ago
Their code generator makes codes that look quite pretty (if they're large). I imagine the patterns come from redundancy for error correction? https://i.imgur.com/e0OrYZo.png https://i.imgur.com/e0OrYZo.png
r-w 8y ago
Very cool! How’s it work on a smartphone camera? ;)
pygy_ 8y ago
People here seem to think that this is someone's weekend project, not the result of serious engineering from an institute of the Fraunhofer Society (which it is). The spec can be found at https://www.bsi.bund.de/EN/Publications/TechnicalGuidelines/TR03137/BSITR03137.html https://www.bsi.bund.de/EN/Publications/TechnicalGuidelines/... (63 pages, the BSI is the German Federal Office for Information Security, a government agency), and this is slated to become an ISO standard. Here's the Google translation (original in German provided somewhere else by @JdeBP) of an article introducing the tech: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=fr&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ident.one%2Fde%2F2018%2F07%2F30%2Fjust-another-barcode-jab-code%2F https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=fr&sl=auto&tl=en&u... I agree with others that the master/slave terminology is unfortunate in new tech like this. Otherwise this looks pretty good.
- dsl 8y ago
  So it is some research institutes weekend project. The process of making something an ISO standard is not as rigorous as IETF or IEEE. ISO has over 250 technical committees, cranking out useless standards all the time. Most members vote to approve whatever comes down the pipe if it doesn't impact them directly. Looking closer at the spec you linked, it is tacked on to a standard for visual checksumming of printed documents. It isn't even moving forward on its own merits as a reasonable 2D barcode implementation.
  - jake_the_third 8y ago
    I've just skimmed over the both specifications and haven't noticed anything that would indicate that this is a "weekend project". In fact, I'm impressed enough that I might work on an implementation in my preferred language (assuming a decent testing dataset is available). What exactly are the technical issues that make you dismiss this project so harshly?
fallat 8y ago
I had this exact idea about a year ago: https://github.com/lf94/blots https://github.com/lf94/blots Basically: cheap consumer printers suck. Don't bother.
jake_the_third 8y ago
What is JAB's patent situation like? One of QR-codes most important attributes (for us, at least) is that patent threats are relatively low. Has research been done to see how safe implementations are from infringing on currently-valid patents?
bl4ckm0r3 8y ago
Isn't the colour a problem because of the white balancing and the way cameras "change" the colour when taking a shot?

170 points by Confiks 8y ago

How well does it hold up in adverse conditions, like outdoors in bad weather, or dark light, or a drunk person trying to take the photo?

tyingq 8y ago
It doesn't appear to have anything to correct for orientation like the 3 corners in a QR code. Edit: ok, found the docs/description of the finder patterns: https://imgur.com/a/ZXXLtQ0 https://imgur.com/a/ZXXLtQ0
- gugagore 8y ago
  > A JAB Code contains one master symbol and optionally multiple slave symbols. Master symbol contains four finder patterns located at the corners of the symbol, while slave symbol contains no finder pattern

lol768 8y ago

Tried a few times with the "Scan" demo on https://jabcode.org/create/ https://jabcode.org/create/ using Firefox for Android, but it appears to just get stuck displaying a loading spinner. Seems to work in Chrome, so not sure what's wrong with the implementation to make it not work.

iceprey 8y ago
To add to this, I am getting vague error messages with any text of a certain length (longer than 100 characters or so) if I tweak any, or at least several, of the advanced settings.
sbugert 8y ago
Thanks for reporting, Firefox for Android should work now.

douglaswlance 8y ago

Every screen and printer will display/print colors differently. This is not a good idea.

LeoPanthera 8y ago
Every HN comment thread is full of armchair critics. Maybe the designer actually thought of this! If the colors are quantized into a constellation, even significant error could be corrected.
- flipp3r 8y ago
  Well, I hope the designer accounted for multiple colors failing to displayer properly. The pink and red are impossible to discern for me. My bank uses colored QR style codes and they're impossible to use with (very common) blue light filters active in the evening hours.
- aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
  Except if said colors fade over time or change their hue due to UV exposure like most pigments used for printing.
  - ygra 8y ago
    QR codes printed on thermal paper also fade over the course of a year and would be unreadable. There are always uncorrectable adverse conditions.
    - aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
      Sure. And if you light the paper on fire even 24pt Helvetica becomes unreadable. But I’m sure you too feel that the failure modes of this colored barcode form a proper subset of the failure modes of its monochromatic counterpart.
      - naikrovek 8y ago

Crazyontap 8y ago

In case anyone missed it, a very interesting link explaining how QR codes work was posted on HN a few days ago[1]. I wish there was some explanation like this on this JAB code and how exactly it gives high capacity over the b/w code. [1] https://www.nayuki.io/page/creating-a-qr-code-step-by-step https://www.nayuki.io/page/creating-a-qr-code-step-by-step

sarahmike 8y ago
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vanderZwan 8y ago
Well, there is this: > The technical specification of the barcode is available as BSI TR03137 - Part 2[0] It's apparently research done by the German Federal Office for Information Security. [0] https://www.bsi.bund.de/EN/Publications/TechnicalGuidelines/TR03137/BSITR03137.html https://www.bsi.bund.de/EN/Publications/TechnicalGuidelines/...
Dorothysd 8y ago
She has been unemployed for eight months but last month her income with big fat bonus was over Bucks 9000 just working on the laptop for a few hours. <3 :) https://www.cyberjobsonline.com https://www.cyberjobsonline.com

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

xhruso00 8y ago

People print codes on glossy papers or try to scan them in various light conditions. This is not alternative for outdoor placement.

CharlesW 8y ago
All barcodes can be printed on glossy papers, so that's not a unique challenge. Various light conditions aren't terribly difficult to account for, especially when known colors are involved (as they are here).

jasonjmcghee 8y ago

Demo (https://jabcode.org/create/ https://jabcode.org/create/) worked on the first example I tried, then I tried using advanced settings and it threw an "Error Something went wrong" every time. This was in Chrome.

nneonneo 8y ago
With Advanced Settings you control the format and capacity of the code, so if you specify too many characters or too high of an error correction level it will fail (with that rather unhelpful error). Try increasing the version (which adds more pixels in the X or Y direction), or adding a few slave blocks. (The above is based on my quick exploration with it on Safari, YMMV)
aidenn0 8y ago
Without the advanced settings, it seems to automatically grow the code as needed. You need to manually add "slave" boxes though (to the right of the sliders). The interface is nonintuitive.
nine_k 8y ago
It seems to stop working at particular text lengths. Sort of a bummer when you want to see how much text it can accommodate in a square, compared to a QR code.

sarahmike 8y ago

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Dorothysd 8y ago

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gf263 8y ago

> master symbol and slave symbol nooo

tomcooks 8y ago
Laughed hard

gregschlom 8y ago

Reminds me of Microsoft's High-Capacity Color Barcode: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/high-capacity-color-barcodes-hccb/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/high-capaci... Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode

brink 8y ago
Microsoft comes up with a lot of neat little ideas. And also some bad ones. But mostly good ones.
- Twirrim 8y ago
  Their "Household of the future" lab consistently shows off amazing tech that could be world changing, but the number that actually seem to come to production always seems remarkably low.

ThePadawan 8y ago

How does this relate to the standard of the German ministry for Information Security (BSI) linked at the bottom of the README? Note that isn't just one of many independent implementations as both the repository links to BSI and vice versa.

omershapira 8y ago

I wonder if the 'Master'/'Slave' terminology is necessary here? Aside from being problematic, does it really describe the setup more than 'Primary'/'Secondary'?

jml7c5 8y ago
Is it problematic outside of the US? That said, possibly not the most immediately illustrative choice of terms; master/slave usually implies who's in charge, not a spatial relationship.
- CharlesW 8y ago
  Slavery/human trafficking is not a US-only thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century
- vanderZwan 8y ago
  > master/slave usually implies who's in charge, not a spatial relationship. Spatial relationship aside, there are plenty of less problematic ways to depict who is in charge.
openbasic 8y ago
Why is that problematic?
- jml7c5 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master/slave_(technology)#Terminology_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master/slave_(technology)#Term...
- tomp 8y ago
  Because people cannot separate the abstract concept of slavery to the actual historical happening. Personally, I want to be a master to my mechanical slaves (tools, dishwashers, computers, robots) and can't wait for a future where machine-slavery is so pervasive that no humans need to work anymore.

Mistri 8y ago

Is it just me or is that uglier than a QR code?

m1sta_ 8y ago
Just you.
guitarbill 8y ago
on a phone with average brightness, it's okay. on a big monitor, it hurts my eyes looking at it, like green text on a red background. so i genuinely hope these never get used.

skrebbel 8y ago

My bank uses some colored pixelcode not unlike this one. I scan a code on my screen using a little device that I insert the bank card into. It's cool, it works well and it's fancy, but every time I do banking I have to turn off my computer's "night light" mode. I assume lots of people use color filters for various good reasons. Are these codes resisent to that? Else I'd truly prefer oldschool monochrome QR codes, to be honest.

lifthrasiir 8y ago
I've seen worse: some machine had a built-in camera recognizing QR code, but it couldn't really control exposure so I had to manually set my phone's brightness low to get the code detected. Quick Response? Screw that.
staticfloat 8y ago
This is pretty easily fixed by doing white balance correction. One piece of the barcode is always kept white, and it is used for color calibration. assuming the color transformation is constant across the entire code (which is the case in your example) you can undo some pretty large color shifts.

gregmac 8y ago

One of the nice 'features' of QR codes is they're instantly recognizable as QR codes due to the 3 registration marks, and so it's obvious you could pull out your phone and scan one (not that anyone does that). JAB codes just look like a jumble of colored pixels -- it's not obvious it's encoded data, if you were to see this "in the wild". It kind of misses another potential feature, which is registration marks could also establish a baseline for colors, which a reader/scanner could then use to compensate for differences in color reproduction (due to printing / screen settings / etc).

neetdeth 8y ago
Technical specification is here: https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/BSI/Publications/TechGuidelines/TR03137/BSI-TR-03137_Part2.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2 https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/BSI/Publicat... Every JAB code has four registration patterns in the corners, as well as multiple color pallets at fixed locations.
- rwmj 8y ago
  I think OP's point was that humans can't recognize those features. Edit: I should have said untrained humans.
  - ivanbakel 8y ago
    OP did also say that the registration marks had machine benefits, for which it's worth noting that they are defined, even if humans can't spot them.
  - neetdeth 8y ago
    I can recognize those features. Sure, you need to look for them, but why would anyone care to? Surely after encountering only a few RGB codes the average person will have no trouble inferring that a jumble of colored blocks against a white background is likely to be encoded data. Same "training process" as needed for QR codes - although in this case the quiet zone is not needed, so you _could_ use these in a deliberately obscure fashion if you wanted, which isn't a shortcoming.

PhrosTT 8y ago

What's the capacity of this thing? Don't see it anywhere obvious.

1ris 8y ago
It's on page 13 of the spec. Up to 27kb.
- jungler 8y ago
  It's actually indefinite by adding more slave blocks, the spec example shows how this works up to 60 blocks, but the algorithm holds beyond that.

moonsun 8y ago

I am trying to think of possible use cases. If you came across an image like at https://moonsun.gitlab.io https://moonsun.gitlab.io would you stop to scan it using your phone?

Macuyiko 8y ago

Yet again another barcode / QR proposal. Can't speak for the Americas, but here in Europe QR codes aren't used that much, I feel, except maybe for mobile payments. Compare this with China, where QR codes are in literally every store, each taxi driver has a printed one nearby and even street food cards use them to pay. I can't see this one becoming popular, given how many are printed on glossy / dirty paper (often using black and white printers as well). I am amazed though how well the standard QR code works in most cases, even with everyone adding an icon in the middle of it (and basically removing error correcting redundancy). An interesting QR thing I picked up last time I was there is how circular QR codes are becoming more popular, see e.g. https://irf.fhnw.ch/bitstream/handle/11654/17880/Fokusreport_stamm.pdf?sequence=1 https://irf.fhnw.ch/bitstream/handle/11654/17880/Fokusreport... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShotCode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShotCode for earlier approaches but WeChat has started using its own thing, kind of like Facebook and Snapchat are doing: https://chinachannel.co/wechat-launches-new-mini-program-qrcodes/ https://chinachannel.co/wechat-launches-new-mini-program-qrc...

ravenstine 8y ago
I think it's the same for the Americas, but just because the average person doesn't use QR codes very much that doesn't mean that such technologies aren't being used in ways that aren't widely reported. For instance, I know someone who placed small barely-visible QR codes in videos that get passed off to editors so that each clip and frame number(and other info) can be detected programmatically despite editing software stripping out metadata. I think QR is one of those things that solves very niche problems that even the average engineer might not be made aware of. People are quick to point out "nobody uses QR" but it's not exactly fair to expect ubiquity from something like that. My response would be the same for those in this thread saying "people can't recognize JAB codes like they can with QR." Well, those who find a use for JAB codes are probably going to be the people using them 99% of the time(maybe more than QR because of data density), thus they're almost certainly know to know how to recognize them.
- michaelmior 8y ago
  Another interesting use case: Crowdmark[0], a digital grading platform uses QR codes printed on test pages to match these up to the correct student when they are scanned without the need for any manual matching process. [0] https://crowdmark.com/ https://crowdmark.com/

Confiks 8y ago

To copy a comment from a Github issue [1], comparing the different implementations: - CRONTO, PM-Code and HCCB and AuthPaper are proprietary. CRONTO has attracted some usage mainly by banks, PM-Code looks like vaporware, AuthPaper seems inactive and HCCB is dead [2]. - CobraKing seems to be a 2012 research project, unmaintained - HCC2D seems to be mainly academic exploration Papers and results similar to HCC2D pop up periodically (i.e. [3]), but unfortunately nobody has released any (experimental) source code. It quite frustrating. For example, AuthPaper implemented their solution on top of ZXing, but they never contributed back. They apparently thought they could make some money out of it, but now that their venture is inactive, their ZXing modification is in limbo as well. From my one-hour research, that makes JAB Code the only actually FOSS implementation of a high capacity 'barcode'. If you know of other (FOSS) implementations, please let me know. I'm quite surprised JAB Code has existed for so long in a fairly production-ready state without attracting much attention. It deserves much more, looking at the rest of the field. [1] https://github.com/jabcode/jabcode/issues/2 https://github.com/jabcode/jabcode/issues/2 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode#Discontinuation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode#Di... [3] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/95c7/fe455a084b0f0ce9923e996652156c1f7998.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/95c7/fe455a084b0f0ce9923e99...

jf 8y ago
Thanks for doing this research! I've long dreamed of making a "print to binary to paper" backup system, but all the 2D barcodes I considered had patent encumbrances.
- fallat 8y ago
  This was the motivation behind what I tried to make: https://github.com/lf94/blots https://github.com/lf94/blots
  - ZenPsycho 8y ago
    related: https://github.com/cyphar/paperback https://github.com/cyphar/paperback

divan 8y ago

I wonder what throughput it can give when used as an animated sequence of codes? I experimented with animated QRs for data transfer last week and the real maximum I’ve achieved was around 9KB/s. https://divan.github.io/posts/animatedqr https://divan.github.io/posts/animatedqr Using colored high-capacity encoding should yield much better results, given the decoder is as fast as QR one.

specialist 8y ago
Cool. How does Apple's iPhone-to-Watch pairing animated graphic work? Maybe their technique has higher bandwidth.
- divan 8y ago
  Unlikely. I skimmed through both patents [1][2], and I don't recall any numbers on throughput. But the general principle is super cool – they analyze the change in luminance of the picture, and chrominance can be whatever you wish (so they can replace particle cloud with any custom animation). The idea is that human eye is much more perceptible to changes in color than to changes in luminance, but for image processing software it's quite different - they can decode luminance changes quite reliably :) So my guess is that Apple's approach is optimized for coolness, rather than transfer speed. [1] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=2&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=(235%2F469.CCLS.+AND+20150505.PD.)&OS=ccl/235/469+and+isd/5/5/2015&RS=(CCL/235/469+AND+ISD/20150505) http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H... [2] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=(235%2F469.CCLS.+AND+20150505.PD.)&OS=ccl/235/469+and+isd/5/5/2015&RS=(CCL/235/469+AND+ISD/20150505) http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...
- paulgb 8y ago
  Speaking of screen-to-watch data transfer, the Timex Data Link watch somehow accomplished this in the mid-90s. There must have been some dark magic to make it work on a watch-battery powered processor at the time. https://youtu.be/2VmtPaiOBwI https://youtu.be/2VmtPaiOBwI

rek32 8y ago

Use this very danger control of man. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rishibhakat.pallavi.sammohancontrol https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rishibhaka...

qume 8y ago

Cameras only see one colour per pixel (i.e. Bayer colour filter array). Because our eyes are not so acute at resolving colour compared to luminescence this tradeoff works well. But in this context I'm not sure at a pixel level how much 'extra' information is added by _removing_ red/green from the blue pixels, green/blue from the red etc. In other words, if the image came from a digital camera, to actually stuff more information into the same number of pixels, colour may or may not help. In any case working with the raw CFA bayer source image would almost certainly be beneficial over interpreting the image after it has been converted to a normal RGB image (losing information in the process)

JdeBP 8y ago
Information is not encoded in pixels, it is encoded in so-called modules, which are more than 1 pixel in either dimension (and square when printed).
neetdeth 8y ago
This is an interesting point, but it assumes perfect optics. If the image is slightly out of focus, I think three lower resolution images in different spectral regions is a big win.
- qume 8y ago
  I think it depends on the context - if you're designing the whole system from bar code to camera, I'm not sure that the color will help. But in that case you can assume close to perfect optics and I'm not sure if you would find an improvement or the opposite over a monochrome setup with better SNR. On the other hand if you're stuck with things like mobile phone cameras, and can only control the bar code side, then Id imagine you'd see some improvements as you say. An interesting middle ground would be if you could get the raw image from the sensor before a generic debayer algorithm gets applied. Good luck, keep up the good work... i've worked commercially on optical barcode systems and it's a super interesting topic (tho looks like my post has been downvoted out of existence so maybe you wont see this).
  - 8y ago

tsumnia 8y ago

A what point is someone just going to reinvent Piet [1]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language#Piet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language#...

JdeBP 8y ago

There is more information at https://www.ident.one/de/2018/07/30/just-another-barcode-jab-code/ https://www.ident.one/de/2018/07/30/just-another-barcode-jab... .

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

lettergram 8y ago

Seems similar to my ChromaTags approach from 2015: https://austingwalters.com/chromatags/ https://austingwalters.com/chromatags/ My post goes a bit into more detail on how it works, and why for instance - the given colors were chosen. It appears they too use the Lab color space for instance.

kbaker 8y ago
I don't think they use the Lab color space, except if you define your own colors to use in the palette, did you see a reference to it? From their encoding spec: > In order to optimize the decoding of JAB Code, the used colors shall be so distinguishable as possible. Therefore, the used colors shall keep a distance from each other in the RGB color space cube > In case of 256-color-mode, the color channel R and G take eight values, 0, 36, 73, 109, 146, 182, 219 and 255, and the color channel B takes four values, 0, 85, 170 and 255, which will totally generate 256 colors. Which is too bad, because your idea of using Lab with ChromaTags to enable quick and accurate finding of the symbol was a really insightful technique. The decoding algorithm they suggest seems like it would be slow, and their use of RGB seems like a whole bunch of issues due to color-selective fading, shadows, damage, lighting, incorrect printer calibration, etc.

nimbius 8y ago

for those decrying the limited use of 2d barcodes in the US or in europe, you've never set foot in a manufacturing environment. 2d barcodes are used for cradle-to-grave inventory tracking by systems like Glovia and SAP. everything from transmission gears to soda pop are tagged during manufacture with numerous 2d barcodes that change at different stations, and at different times. it doesnt matter what your new standard claims to achieve, it is useless without industry adoption. Toyota, Honda, Yamaha, Ford, Dell, and countless other manufacturing titans have invested collective billions into the QR implementations of their factories and arent going to re-tool just because your standard has colors. QR is also massively resilient to failure. Try this experiment: cut a QR code in half, try to read it. It will succeed. This resilience is pivotal in harsh environments and especially during international/trans oceanic shipping. black and white QR can be engraved on shipping containers and is resistant to corrosion, solvents, and the environment around it. QR codes are regularly burned at thousands of degrees as part of the heat treatment process for hardened steel, and still perform. Vision systems for forklifts and robotic cranes at shipping yards (most are robotic yards these days) rely on near/far vision systems developed by Intermec and other companies to read a code the size of a postage stamp from up to 150 meters away.

crispyambulance 8y ago
2D barcodes such as QR and datamatrix certainly have their place, but I wouldn't say they're "massively resilient" to failure. The codes use reed-solomon ECC and the symbology spec has different levels of error tolerance ranging up to a max of ~30% errors. That's certainly robust but it still requires a controlled optical setup to avoid operator frustration. Sometimes, in some applications, a nice big 1D barcode is better. Your 150 meter postage stamp example is an extreme use case that requires a lot of setup to work properly. This color barcode appears to be an effort from a respected institution to increase information density. It doesn't have to be immediately accepted by major manufacturers to succeed. It just has to solve some problems for some applications. I think it's a compelling new symbology. I work in manufacturing too.
- imhoguy 8y ago
  What if we add color or even UV/IR to an existing QR code just to increase data redundancy? Backward-compatibility FTW!

accosine 8y ago

The website https://jabcode.org/ https://jabcode.org/ gets a solid 100 in Lighthouse - NICE!

specialist 8y ago

Is there a "human readable" bar code variation? I want something that's both scannable and typeable. One use case is those placards for artworks at museums and galleries. I want to print something that's both easy to scan and easy to jot down.

reaperducer 8y ago
Is there a "human readable" bar code variation? Like a UPC code? Those have the contents printed right underneath.

reaperducer 8y ago

Somewhat off topic, but does anyone know the name of the crazy circular moving barcode thing that Apple uses to pair an Apple Watch with an iPhone?

PostOnce 8y ago

Imagine downloading a manifesto or something from a protest sign in a newspaper or on TV. Imagine downloading a working application from a barcode (perhaps assuming you have the "reader" app which includes a set of software libraries to do some of the heavy lifting / batteries included) -- gameboy did it. It might be useful in a disaster, or an oppressive regime scenario, but at worst, it would be fun. 3D models? Retro game console with games distributed on paper? My imagination is limited, but I have a feeling that barcodes are something waiting to meet some newly-possible potential with the advent of handheld scanners and very high capacity barcodes. We tried VR and PDAs and cellphones and stuff in the late 80s/early 90s, but it wasnt until the 2010s they became something really useful; I wonder if barcodes will find some new life in the future, now that more capable and available hardware exists.

zmix 8y ago

So, how many bytes can this encode? I found no reference for that.

theclaw 8y ago

An eight-colour code does not seem smart for printed codes where most printers use only four inks. A colour code using cyan, magenta, yellow, white and black might be more reliable (although yellow could easily be confused with white). The PDF suggests 256-colour codes are supported, but that would mean luminosity is a factor, and I can't see how that would ever be reliable if the code is intended to be scanned with a camera.

ttsda 8y ago
The codes have palettes embedded to adjust to different lighting and ink.
ZenPsycho 8y ago
Yellow and magenta are also generally fugitive. Meaning that, over time, due to UV exposure, the yellow will completely fade, followed by magenta, and all you're left with is cyan and black. You'll see this in shops with advertising posters in their front window that haven't been changed in a long time.

dymk 8y ago

Their code generator makes codes that look quite pretty (if they're large). I imagine the patterns come from redundancy for error correction? https://i.imgur.com/e0OrYZo.png https://i.imgur.com/e0OrYZo.png

r-w 8y ago

Very cool! How’s it work on a smartphone camera? ;)

pygy_ 8y ago

People here seem to think that this is someone's weekend project, not the result of serious engineering from an institute of the Fraunhofer Society (which it is). The spec can be found at https://www.bsi.bund.de/EN/Publications/TechnicalGuidelines/TR03137/BSITR03137.html https://www.bsi.bund.de/EN/Publications/TechnicalGuidelines/... (63 pages, the BSI is the German Federal Office for Information Security, a government agency), and this is slated to become an ISO standard. Here's the Google translation (original in German provided somewhere else by @JdeBP) of an article introducing the tech: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=fr&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ident.one%2Fde%2F2018%2F07%2F30%2Fjust-another-barcode-jab-code%2F https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=fr&sl=auto&tl=en&u... I agree with others that the master/slave terminology is unfortunate in new tech like this. Otherwise this looks pretty good.

dsl 8y ago
So it is some research institutes weekend project. The process of making something an ISO standard is not as rigorous as IETF or IEEE. ISO has over 250 technical committees, cranking out useless standards all the time. Most members vote to approve whatever comes down the pipe if it doesn't impact them directly. Looking closer at the spec you linked, it is tacked on to a standard for visual checksumming of printed documents. It isn't even moving forward on its own merits as a reasonable 2D barcode implementation.
- jake_the_third 8y ago
  I've just skimmed over the both specifications and haven't noticed anything that would indicate that this is a "weekend project". In fact, I'm impressed enough that I might work on an implementation in my preferred language (assuming a decent testing dataset is available). What exactly are the technical issues that make you dismiss this project so harshly?

fallat 8y ago

I had this exact idea about a year ago: https://github.com/lf94/blots https://github.com/lf94/blots Basically: cheap consumer printers suck. Don't bother.

jake_the_third 8y ago

What is JAB's patent situation like? One of QR-codes most important attributes (for us, at least) is that patent threats are relatively low. Has research been done to see how safe implementations are from infringing on currently-valid patents?

bl4ckm0r3 8y ago

Isn't the colour a problem because of the white balancing and the way cameras "change" the colour when taking a shot?