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The Curious Comeback of the Dreaded QR Code

wired.com

41–50 of 64 posts

Re: The Curious Comeback of the Dreaded QR Code

#42
post #10

So... silicon valley is copying China? Nice. BTW QR codes are awesome, no sarcasm.

Robot barf on everything.

Sure, mate, robot. And it's kind of the case: if you read the article it starts with when x in 2014 in China ... WeChat...

Re: The Curious Comeback of the Dreaded QR Code

#43
post #34

This 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:// 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…

I'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.

Re: The Curious Comeback of the Dreaded QR Code

#44
post #36

Our 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.

We were just in the the trough of disillusionment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle

Re: The Curious Comeback of the Dreaded QR Code

#45
post #34

This 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:// 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…

>They are simply a standard for communication, not unlike writing down an 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.

Re: The Curious Comeback of the Dreaded QR Code

#46
post #36

Our 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.

I 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.

Re: The Curious Comeback of the Dreaded QR Code

#47
>> 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.

Re: The Curious Comeback of the Dreaded QR Code

#48

Heh, like a needed another reason for why i don't touch tumblr with a 10 foot pole...

Fine: https://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.blogspot.com/ Don't like Blogger either? https://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.wordpress.com/

Did i strike a nerve?

Re: The Curious Comeback of the Dreaded QR Code

#49

Phone 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.

The 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).

Re: The Curious Comeback of the Dreaded QR Code

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine: https://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.blogspot.com/ Don't like Blogger either? https://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.wordpress.com/

Did i strike a nerve?

We 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.

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