7 ms·
QR Code in shopping cart handle
- gggggggg 13y agoThe answers on that site are impressive from a helpful perspective. sometimes the internet is full of cat gifs, and other times you get great minds in a sharing mood. This is what hn used to be when I started reading it.
- timdorr 13y agoWhilst impressive, there's a far less mathematical solution: http://i.imgur.com/3QuYufc.jpg http://i.imgur.com/3QuYufc.jpg
- carlosaguayo 13y agoReminded me about the story of the pen and pencil in the moon. www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen
- alexlitov 13y agohttp://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
- vecinu 13y agoPeople still believe this myth? Especially on HN? http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
- Groxx 13y agoWhich is covered in the second paragraph of the article: >This tale with its message of simplicity and thrift--not to mention a failure of common sense in a bureaucracy--floats around the Internet, hopping from in-box to in-box, and even surfaced during a 2002 episode of the West Wing. But, alas, it is just a myth. And anyway (also covered in both the article and Snopes): >Pencils may not have been the best choice anyway. The tips flaked and broke off, drifting in microgravity where they could potentially harm an astronaut or equipment. And the article ends back at square 1, with a new, cheaper space pen which the Soviets also purchased because pencils are problematic in space: >According to an Associated Press report from February 1968, NASA ordered 400 of Fisher's antigravity ballpoint pens for the Apollo program. A year later, the Soviet Union ordered 100 pens and 1,000 ink cartridges to use on their Soyuz space missions, said the United Press International. The AP later noted that both NASA and the Soviet space agency received the same 40 percent discount for buying their pens in bulk. They both paid $2.39 per pen instead of $3.98.
- tikhonj 13y agoThink of it not as a myth but as an amusing allegory.
- jbooth 13y agoBecause it's not truth that matters, it's truthiness. I don't need facts I can understand with my brain, I need facts that I can understand with my gut.
- BHSPitMonkey 13y agoThe variation cited there which says "The astronaut needed a pen that would write in the vacuum of space" was especially painful to read.
- samweinberg 13y agoNot as fun!
- eridius 13y agoThis solution would necessitate buying an entire set of new shopping carts (or at least, shopping cart handles).
- paul9290 13y agoAre people using QR codes frequently here in the states or elsewhere? To me I see them everywhere, but curiously most phones don't have them built into their camera apps (iPhone's camera doesn't have built in scanner) or have some quick an easy way to scan QR codes. Rather you have to download an app and then later find that app, then fidget a bit too much to get the app to read the code. Not the greatest user experience and I have found it frustrating! What advances have been made and or are being made to make QR code scanning quick and painless?
- mrud 13y agohttp://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/ http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/ SCNR But on a more serious note google now/the camera search in android has QR code support integrated and you don't necessarily have to install additional applications.
- mwilcox 13y agoUnfortunately they removed Search with camera in a recent update, hopefully they will add it back in.
- meritt 13y agoNobody uses QR codes except maybe in shipping & receiving industries. I wish people would just let it die.
- acanby 13y agoJapan uses them at airport check ins for their ticketing.
- stephen_g 13y agoIf it's anything like Australia, they're not using QR codes, but some other kind of 2D barcode. 2D barcodes are really useful for things like that (and part identification in manufacturing, etc.), but pretty silly on advertising.
- 13y ago
- TheBiv 13y agoThis screams marketing and engineering not being able to clearly communicate the problem statement. The problem statement was given to engineering as "How do we get a QR code inside of this handle thing?", when I am guessing their actual question was something like "How do we get the shopper to engage with our digital marketing efforts?" I for sure know there are times when marketing has a clear thing of what they want, and you are not allowed to brainstorm the pro's and con's; but the con's seem to far outweigh the pro's in this specific strategy. You're telling me that the shopper would have to contort their phone an unnaturally specific angle just to scan a QR code. Now the problem statement is back to the marketing team of "How do I tell the shopper to contort their phone at this angle?". I doubt that the marketing folks will like this being back on their lap.
- Untit1ed 13y agoI'm not sure if I missed something, but the top answer says: The question is what happens here. The theory behind it is pretty easy and the good thing is, it explains what you have to do from any (meaningful) viewpoint. Let's use a simple cylinder graphic as example to explain what I mean I'm pretty sure his example is at a contorted sideways angle because it demonstrates that you can line it up from any angle. The OP in the question could reasonably expect that the customer will be facing the handle from directly behind it when they push the trolley, and adjust his maths accordingly.
- TheBiv 13y agoI do not know either. But lets assume that unknown you pointed at is true. What I do know is that if I look at the end result from a lay persons perspective, it will look "weird". Weird meaning it doesn't look like a normal QR code. This will result in the same thing I initially mentioned in that marketing will have to communicate to the shopper that they can use this just like a normal QR code, which is a communication problem, not a tech problem.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- mxfh 13y agothis might be actually useful if glued on a bikeframe: http://joe.framba.ch/qr-code-on-a-cylinder http://joe.framba.ch/qr-code-on-a-cylinder
- zachrose 13y agoEntertaining the idea that QR codes should be deformable onto curvilinear surfaces, couldn't this be done by the QR reader, so that it's more "readable" to a person that it is a QR code?
- mxfh 13y agoI think in case of the bike frame the distortion is minor. As I understand it's only there as proof of ownership for the people who really need to know on a hopefully unlikely occasion. So making it not too obvious might be a good idea when it comes to bike theft. The QR-Code is meant to be easy to decode, adding compensation for non-planar surfaces might make it non-trivial to implement on embedded devices.
- sopooneo 13y agoI think most QR code readers can handle reading at an angle, and calculate what angle they're at by the relative distances between the reference squares you'll see in three corners of the code. But telling the difference between a code that is angled on one dimension, and a code that is on a curve would be much more difficult to do reliably. in both cases, one dimension would be compressed, but in the case of the curve, the compression ration would vary.
- joeframbach 13y agoWow, something I did made it on hackernews :)
- esolyt 13y agoI posted this 4 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5810228 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5810228 How come HN allowed a duplicate link?
- m0th87 13y agoOP added a hash (#) after the URL to make it unique
- hayksaakian 13y agoreposting tip #142 some people are experts
- sc68cal 13y agoI hate when people do that. I posted the story to MJ's report on lead in gasoline being linked to crime rates. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5008285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5008285 Someone posted the "print" version and got 333 points for it a couple hours later.
- manojlds 13y agoYou are worried that you didn't get the karma points. I am glad that I was able to find this because someone reposted it, when the other was lost to oblivion.
- esolyt 13y agoHonestly, I don't care about karma at all. I was just curious when I saw the duplicate post. But now that I learned something can be reposted by adding # at the end of it, I think it needs to be fixed.
- RodericDay 13y agoI would've used transparent plastic with a QR code in the center. (So like `(|)` from the side). Awesome discussion, though!
- lazugod 13y agoThis was more interesting/informative than logos-in-CSS posts, and yet many of the comments are negative.
- manojlds 13y agoMany of the comments on that one were negative too. What is interesting for one person is dumb for another anyway. For me, both the css-logos, and this QR code on a cylinder were nice to see from a theoretical point of view, but I don't see any practical use.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rileyt 13y agoThe better question is why are they using QR codes??
- ck2 13y agoUm, I never look at the cart handle. However the inside of the back of the cart is flat and in 100% visual range.
- utopkara 13y agoHow hard is it to put a flat surface on the shopping cart? Why is the cart handle the best place to put the QR code? I am pretty sure the method will come in handy, and the way the solution is presented is awesome though.
- sopooneo 13y agoIt seems likely to me that the marketing people are working with a third party to do that actual construction and installation of the adverts. Their options for what physical shaped plastic the advert will go in are certainly limited and there may be no option for flat plastic, or the marketers may not realize the utility of such an option. But I would be very surprised if the marketers could specify a custom shape for the plastic.
- rurounijones 13y agoThat has to be one of the most in-depth and informative answers in the history of StackerOverflow. I wonder if there is a "best of" search you can do.
- itafroma 13y agoThere is a "greatest hits" list for each Stack Exchange site: just add /questions/greatest-hits to the end of the domain. Examples: http://serverfault.com/questions/greatest-hits http://serverfault.com/questions/greatest-hits http://stackoverflow.com/questions/greatest-hits http://stackoverflow.com/questions/greatest-hits http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/greatest-hits http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/greatest-hits http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/greatest-hits http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/greatest-hits There's of course an "is:answer" search sorted by votes for each site as well: http://serverfault.com/search?tab=votes&q=is%3aanswer http://serverfault.com/search?tab=votes&q=is%3aanswer http://stackoverflow.com/search?tab=votes&q=is%3aanswer http://stackoverflow.com/search?tab=votes&q=is%3aanswer http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/search?tab=votes&q=is%3aanswer http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/search?tab=votes&q=... http://programmers.stackexchange.com/search?tab=votes&q=is%3aanswer http://programmers.stackexchange.com/search?tab=votes&q=...
- rurounijones 13y agoExcellent, thank you very much.
- emillon 13y agoAs other comments note, this is missing the point a lot. QR codes are useful (or supposed to be) because they can be scanned from a different perspective. This solution requires a particular viewing angle and cannot cope with perspective shifting, making it useless in practice. For this particular problem, attaching a QR code to a flat surface (if possible), or using "old fashioned" 1D barcodes (they probably carry enough information) is probably a better solution. The general problem is designing a high density, 2D barcode system that can cope with perspective shifting with a cylindrical topology ; now that would be a neat mathematical trick!
- downandout 13y agoWhy not print the QR code on a sticker, and place the sticker on the plastic flap on the cart?
- ryanklee 13y agoBecause that's where little Jimmy/Susie and/or a pile of bananas is currently sitting.