After playing with your app for a while, I have following feedback:
1. It could be some kind of niche fun, for example in case of urban/alternate/augmented reality games.
2. Drawing properly recognized tags requires significant skill - about 30% of my drawings weren't recognized at all.
3. Some kind of scanning-progress-bar or other indicator wold be helpful for impatient users :)
Taking into account points 2 and 3, it would be beneficial to improve users onboarding if you think about mass adoption.
Show HN: A Hand-Drawn QR Code Alternative
101–110 of 140 posts
Re: Show HN: A Hand-Drawn QR Code Alternative
#102Thought I'd clarify generally a little bit. QR codes definitely have a lot of advantages over Meshtag - and they're perfect for what they do. I'm by no means suggesting this could "replace" QR codes. Where Meshtag fits in is that it's aimed at users and not companies. I think a large reason most people don't scan QR codes is because they assume they're just trying to sell you something. But if you saw a meshtag that…
Actually, when I see MeshTags I assume "they're" just trying to sell me an cumbersome url shortening serivce.
By the way, the assumption that people don't/won't use QR codes is wrong. Here's one example: Chinese associate QR codes with product information (ex.: scanning a code on a bottle of soda).
Many people don't use QR codes but I think your assumption (QR codes will evermore be perceived as commercials) is totally off base.
Re: Show HN: A Hand-Drawn QR Code Alternative
#103Hand drawn alternative to QR codes? Writing the URL down in letters?
If the problem is machine recognition of handwriting, the Graffiti alphabet is both human readable and writable and easy enough for a 32MHz 68030-ish CPU to recognize in realtime.
Graffiti is recognized by observing the strokes (direction, turns, etc) as it is drawn, with each pen lift/touch marking the characters. This is quite a different problem from doing OCR on it in a photograph, where you can (hopefully) see the shapes, but you do not know where the strokes began and ended.
Re: Show HN: A Hand-Drawn QR Code Alternative
#104I don't really get why I'd use a Meshtag over a QR code. Pretty much everyone has a QR reader already, whereas this requires people to download a new app (for no real gain on their part either). It also requires them to have an internet connection, which for any thing other than a URL, is really not necessary. The problem it says it's trying to solve, making them drawable, isn't really a problem at all. I've never wa…
> I don't really get why I'd use a Meshtag over a QR code.
They look cooler. QR codes are obviously computer readable nonsense. Many have complained about how ugly QR codes are. This is a nicer looking alternative.
That said, your criticisms are valid. Meshtags probably aren't going to replace QR codes, but they may inspire a nicer replacement.
Re: Show HN: A Hand-Drawn QR Code Alternative
#105Unfortunately, and unlike a QR code, the data is not encoded in the drawing itself, which means an Internet connection is always needed. For URL sharing the Internet connection requirement is not so much of a problem (you'd always need that connection for browsing to the URL, unless it's a local or data URL), for everything else it may be. Also, once the Meshtag service goes down or closes for good, all tags become i…
I'm less worried about the requirement for an internet connection than I am about the single point of failure. When the centralised service goes down, all your tags are useless squiggles.
Re: Show HN: A Hand-Drawn QR Code Alternative
#106This is nothing more than a (pointlessly!) complex URL shortener... Meshtags are exactly equivalent to the following hypothetical service which I call "SuperNumericShortener": 1. Pick any random number, say 1234. This is your identifier. 2. Register this identifier and your URL at SuperNumericShortener.com 3. Write "SNS-1234" anywhere you want. 4. Install a fancy smartphone app that can take a picture of a writing an…
Google Goggles will open up a written URL just from a picture. For handwritten ones I think it just has to be really legible but for printed ones it works easily.
Re: Show HN: A Hand-Drawn QR Code Alternative
#107I think a lot of people are missing the point here.
What we basically have is a pictograph URL shortener. This may be complex from the computer side, but from a human side, this could be vastly simpler.
E.g: - Draw a Triforce and go to Nintendos Zelda page. - Draw a big triangle, with a line across the top to make a mountain, and go to some page about Everest or something.
And since it's the segments that matter, the possibilities are endless, spokes of a bike wheel, a pizza, pacman, airplane. It also easier to remember than a url, and if your memory is a bit fuzzy, just start drawing and you can figure out if it looks funny.
Good job Sam!
Re: Show HN: A Hand-Drawn QR Code Alternative
#108I think everyone here who's pointing out that this is equivalent to a link shortener is missing something: the majority of QR codes in existence right now... are encodings of link-shortener URLs.
Re: Show HN: A Hand-Drawn QR Code Alternative
#109Is there an API and intents for this?
Re: Show HN: A Hand-Drawn QR Code Alternative
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very true. And I steered away from squares due to the "swastika effect". Also because the information is slightly more dense with a system based on triangles - 6 bits at a given vertex versus 4 bits.
Ha, you got me for a second. The bits aren't "stored" inside the vertex, but in the segments: It would be like saying that the space between bits "{0,1} {0,1}" contains 2 bits of information, and that we could encode more compactly by disposing bits around a circle, hence maximizing the number of bits in the center space. So given a triangular/square grid, the number of traceable segments is what matters (and that's…
'Maxicode' uses a hexagonal pattern to encode the data - it's probably how this idea would evolve if you wanted to store the data in the pattern itself: