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Why QR Codes Are Here To Stay

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Re: Why QR Codes Are Here To Stay

#41

Post by kalleboo »

grimen wrote: post #6

The real thing will be image scanning and nothing else. I'll post a video soon here on HN to prove that images are way better "barcodes" than both 1D and 2D/QR barcodes. What I can say now is: 1. QR codes don't work on distances - state of the art image algoritms do. 2. QR codes mess with the brand appearance - basically H&M don't want a QR code all over an ad. 3. QR codes fail when there's reflection, dark dirt, and…

They've been doing the image scanning thing a bit in Sweden, where you can take pictures of bus stop ads and be taken to a site. The problem as I see it is that it needs a database connection, which means

* You need a network connection for it to work, so it won't work everywhere (subway ads)

* Since there's a network service involved, it can't be an open standard, and users will need 20 different apps installed for all the different service providers, and figure out just what app to use for this damn ad.

* Due to the network roundtrip, you don't have instant feedback that the scan worked, which is a problem since

* Performance is poor in the dark.

QR codes also solve the problem of telling people that there's something actually there to scan.

Re: Why QR Codes Are Here To Stay

#42

Post by masklinn »

pak wrote: post #28

Here I'll give you a "real world hyperlink": print the damn URL in English so that I can remember it if I don't have my phone handy. If you're running a print ad you can afford a short snappy URL. Bonus, I can even use it on my laptop that doesn't have a QR code app! Or any other browser for that matter! The main problem I have with QR codes is that humans can't read them . Therefore, they will be relegated forever t…

> Here I'll give you a "real world hyperlink": print the damn URL in English so that I can remember it if I don't have my phone handy.

Provide both then, because typing a URL is a pain on most mobiles, especially urls more than 5 characters.

> If you're running a print ad you can afford a short snappy URL.

What sense would it make? You have an existing brand and an existing site, why have to create a new brand and a new site just to link to that?

> Therefore, they will be relegated forever to the sphere of computerish heiroglyphics that normal people will always ignore, because they have no obvious real world relevance.

Japan and Korea demonstrate how absolutely incorrect you are.

> By way of contrast, most of the old EAN barcodes have the number printed under them, so a human can see what they encode when the barcode scanner breaks. QR codes, not so easy.

Wait that has no relevance whatsoever to the previous half of the paragraph, you said "normal people" would always ignore QRCodes, but anyone can recognize a barcode and knows (at least roughly) what it's about. QRCode will reach that ubiquity (as I mentioned, they already have in Japan and Korea for instance), and by that time children will only have to learn about them once.

> I mean, if Google Goggles can OCR text on a menu or poster in real time... a QR code is just making things complicated.

Google Goggles can attempt to do that with all the power of Google behind it. Just about any low-power device with a camera can recognize, read, fix (qrcode embeds significant amount of redundancy for error recovery) and decode a qrcode.

Re: Why QR Codes Are Here To Stay

#43

Post by masklinn »

artursapek wrote: post #13

Ever since I started seeing QR codes I, admittedly with a lack of interest anyway, just assumed that the iPhone/Android/Blackberry cameras all automatically detect the code and act on it in the built-in camera app, since it seemed like such a standard. It was disappointing to learn that wasn't really the case, and there's a bunch of competing third-party apps for doing it. It's amazing that it's gotten as far as it h…

> It's amazing that it's gotten as far as it has without any large companies pushing it (that I'm aware of).

It's not being pushed much in the US. It's been created by a subsidiary of Toyota and is ubiquitous in Japan. It's also widely used in South Korea and (at the very least) Netherlands. I don't think there's any phone there which lacks native QRCode support in japan, and just about any poster has a QRCode on it linking to the relevant page.

Re: Why QR Codes Are Here To Stay

#44

Post by masklinn »

grimen wrote: post #36
bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how do you know you can scan it in the first place?

Well, in our case we have the long-term vision of being the first choice for bying products via image feature detection. We believe that people in the future will expect anything to be scannable, in same way anything is searchable. In both cases you might get false positives with a rating how good match it was. Though, our view is that most people haven't seen the state of the art solutions in use for consumer produc…

So. You don't.

Re: Why QR Codes Are Here To Stay

#45

Post by eik3_de »

callmeed wrote: post #2

... says the CEO of a QR code startup. I've been anti-QR code for a while—partly just because I like playing devil's advocate—but mainly because I see little benefit and a lot of friction to use "in the real world" Now, please, someone on HN who isn't a QR-preneur tell me a story of how a QR code in the wild made your life better ...

Riding the tram, there was an ad of sth. interesting sticked to the door. The URL and a QR code were printed at the bottom. Instead of opening the browser and typing in the URL on the shaky train I fired up the Goggles app (home screen), pointed it to the code and about 2 seconds and one button later the page was loading in my browser. Given an URL and a QR code above I would always choose to use the QR code just because it's much easier than using the tiny on-screen keyboard of the smartphone. QR codes should not try to replace an URL but rather be an alternative to typing it in. You could compare that to whatever.com (not hyperlinked, type in/copy paste) vs. http://whatever.com/ (hyperlinked, one click).

Re: Why QR Codes Are Here To Stay

#48

Post by goorpy »

franze wrote: post #31
pak wrote: post #28

Here I'll give you a "real world hyperlink": print the damn URL in English so that I can remember it if I don't have my phone handy. If you're running a print ad you can afford a short snappy URL. Bonus, I can even use it on my laptop that doesn't have a QR code app! Or any other browser for that matter! The main problem I have with QR codes is that humans can't read them . Therefore, they will be relegated forever t…

>Bonus, I can even use it on my laptop that doesn't have a QR code app! Or any other browser for that matter! hmmm, hmmm, well .. you actually can use QR codes from your laptop - and - any other browser (that supports flash, as the HTML5 webcam API is not yet ready) - i know this, as i created it myself - it's called http://miniqr.com/reader.php (with some paid help from http://www.peterelst.com/ ) does it make sense…

Am I missing something? I don't see how that helps a user to parse a QR they come across in meatspace. Say, on a movie poster or fast food cup.

If I'm on a website with a QR code... should that publisher not just use a plain old URL?

Re: Why QR Codes Are Here To Stay

#49

Post by keeperofdakeys »

franze wrote: post #31
pak wrote: post #28

Here I'll give you a "real world hyperlink": print the damn URL in English so that I can remember it if I don't have my phone handy. If you're running a print ad you can afford a short snappy URL. Bonus, I can even use it on my laptop that doesn't have a QR code app! Or any other browser for that matter! The main problem I have with QR codes is that humans can't read them . Therefore, they will be relegated forever t…

>Bonus, I can even use it on my laptop that doesn't have a QR code app! Or any other browser for that matter! hmmm, hmmm, well .. you actually can use QR codes from your laptop - and - any other browser (that supports flash, as the HTML5 webcam API is not yet ready) - i know this, as i created it myself - it's called http://miniqr.com/reader.php (with some paid help from http://www.peterelst.com/ ) does it make sense…

I personally would find it much easier to type in a url on my laptop. Using a laptops camera for a QR code is very awkward, you have to orientate it correctly when you can't see the screen, possibly have to hit a key at the same time.

Re: Why QR Codes Are Here To Stay

#50

Post by alinajaf »

pak wrote: post #28

Here I'll give you a "real world hyperlink": print the damn URL in English so that I can remember it if I don't have my phone handy. If you're running a print ad you can afford a short snappy URL. Bonus, I can even use it on my laptop that doesn't have a QR code app! Or any other browser for that matter! The main problem I have with QR codes is that humans can't read them . Therefore, they will be relegated forever t…

While I agree that having a URL that you can read is better, I think 'relegated forever to the sphere of computerish heiroglyphics that normal people will always ignore' is a little strong. In Japan they've been using them for nigh on a decade and general 'non-technical' population are perfectly comfortable with them.
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