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QR-style codes could replace barcodes 'within two years'

theguardian.com

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Re: QR-style codes could replace barcodes 'within two years'

#11

Post by frankus »

One of the ideas I was toying with a few years ago was a machine-readable nutrition label, but self-contained rather than involving a database lookup (there just aren't that many bits of entropy in a nutrition facts table, so it's practical to just encode it in a reasonable-size 2D barcode).

I thought they could be useful for e.g. boxed lunches at a conference, or printed on a "mom and pop" restaurant menu, or in a cookbook, where maintaining a central database isn't really practical (aside from avoiding tracking).

It would also be easy to encode things like "Vegan" or "meat-free" or "contains nuts" which could be helpful to blind/low-vision folks or people who don't want to read through a 50-ingredient list to find out something contains shrimp extract or whatever.

I only got as far as setting up a domain (https://nut.codes) and a couple of aborted attempts at prototyping (https://github.com/nut-codes).

Re: QR-style codes could replace barcodes 'within two years'

#12

Post by crazygringo »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #3
veltas wrote: post #2

>Coca-Cola has used the new generation of codes in parts of Latin America for refillable bottles, with the QR code allowing the counting of refills so that a requirement of 25 before recycling can be enforced. More tracking!

My congratulations to all local entrepreneurs who are gearing up their printers to print "replacement" QR codes to put over the existing ones, once the 25-refill limit is reach.

You've got it backwards -- it's a 25-refill minimum, not limit.

And what do entrepreneurs care? They send the bottles back to Coca-Cola regardless. The Coca-Cola truck comes, picks up crates of empty bottles and drops off crates of full bottles.

From the way it's written, it sounds like it's a tool for Coca-Cola to track bottle usage, to separate bottles into separate streams for reuse and now-can-be-recycled.

Re: QR-style codes could replace barcodes 'within two years'

#13

Post by yonatan8070 »

frankus wrote: post #11

One of the ideas I was toying with a few years ago was a machine-readable nutrition label, but self-contained rather than involving a database lookup (there just aren't that many bits of entropy in a nutrition facts table, so it's practical to just encode it in a reasonable-size 2D barcode). I thought they could be useful for e.g. boxed lunches at a conference, or printed on a "mom and pop" restaurant menu, or in a c…

Things like "Vegan" can also just be a distinctly icon on the label, I've seen that many times on restaurant menus

Re: QR-style codes could replace barcodes 'within two years'

#14

Post by cxr »

frankus wrote: post #11

One of the ideas I was toying with a few years ago was a machine-readable nutrition label, but self-contained rather than involving a database lookup (there just aren't that many bits of entropy in a nutrition facts table, so it's practical to just encode it in a reasonable-size 2D barcode). I thought they could be useful for e.g. boxed lunches at a conference, or printed on a "mom and pop" restaurant menu, or in a c…

Better: keeping putting "vegan" and "contains nuts" on the label like every manufacturer already is, wherever they want it to be, and however they want it to appear, but mark it up appropriately, and make the file for the label design accessible by URL. This is the Web that Tim Berners-Lee actually wanted (browser makers' and Modern Web devs' insistence that the Web is really about App Store-like SPAs that can run in your browser notwithstanding).

It's crazy that all the pieces have been there for decades but the idea that you should be able to talk about "the URL of this label (a document)" is nearly unfathomable for professionals who spend a huge chunk of their waking hours ostensibly building "the Web".

Re: QR-style codes could replace barcodes 'within two years'

#15

Post by yonatan8070 »

analog31 wrote: post #5

How much data can the code store? I doubt it will contain all of that information, but rather, a URL. Like the other post said, more tracking!

According to Wikipedia, the largest (version 40) QR code can hold up to 1852 bytes, though they are huge and difficult to scan.

A more readable size is a version 10, which can encode up to 174 bytes with maximum error correction and no compression. This is plenty if a certian predefined binary structure is encoded into it and a device knows how to decode it

Re: QR-style codes could replace barcodes 'within two years'

#16

Post by hansvm »

Some of this looks great, but some of those benefits are literally never going to materialize.

> barcodes highlighting allergens and other dangers

Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart already sell homeopathic sugar pills labeled as closely as legally possible to real medication, stored in the same sections, intermingled one box to the next on the same shelf. The lack of information about a product isn't a technology issue; it's a combination of proper information being expensive to produce and more expensive when it keeps you from buying a lower-production-cost alternative.

You see this in all kinds of markets. Say you want to buy a plant grow lamp; you want physical dimensions, power in, and power out. If you're a nerd or using a lot of them you might like the wavelength distribution (_and_ the units used to produce it), the weight, whether it has UV protection, .... That information is ommitted from most Amazon listings and the packaging from most big box stores. Why is it missing? I guarantee the problem isn't that they used a barcode instead of a QR code.

Re: QR-style codes could replace barcodes 'within two years'

#17

Post by smallerfish »

dialup_sounds wrote: post #10
veltas wrote: post #2

>Coca-Cola has used the new generation of codes in parts of Latin America for refillable bottles, with the QR code allowing the counting of refills so that a requirement of 25 before recycling can be enforced. More tracking!

After careful consideration I've decided that I'm more concerned with the waste and pollution caused by single-use plastics than I am the privacy rights of polyethylene bottles.

First they came for the soda bottles...

Re: QR-style codes could replace barcodes 'within two years'

#18

Post by out_of_protocol »

yonatan8070 wrote: post #15
analog31 wrote: post #5

How much data can the code store? I doubt it will contain all of that information, but rather, a URL. Like the other post said, more tracking!

According to Wikipedia, the largest (version 40) QR code can hold up to 1852 bytes, though they are huge and difficult to scan. A more readable size is a version 10, which can encode up to 174 bytes with maximum error correction and no compression. This is plenty if a certian predefined binary structure is encoded into it and a device knows how to decode it

GUID - 128-bit (16 bytes) code is enough to code unique id that can be stored in central database, that's smallest possible scenario, i think.

The other option is unique id (same 16 bytes, plus maybe other claims like bottle size) plus assymetric signature, 64 bytes i think - for Ed25519. Should fit into 174 bytes just fine and can be verified without internet

Re: QR-style codes could replace barcodes 'within two years'

#19

Post by insensible »

hansvm wrote: post #16

Some of this looks great, but some of those benefits are literally never going to materialize. > barcodes highlighting allergens and other dangers Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart already sell homeopathic sugar pills labeled as closely as legally possible to real medication, stored in the same sections, intermingled one box to the next on the same shelf. The lack of information about a product isn't a technology issue; it…

For a very long time now, homeopathic remedies have been regulated by specific US law, called HPUS, and are labeled accordingly. They’re actually required to include examples of what they treat even though many in the homeopathic community would rather it be labeled more generally.

If you are of the opinion that there’s something that needs to be changed about this arrangement, your lawmaker is the one to contact.

Re: QR-style codes could replace barcodes 'within two years'

#20

Post by DoingIsLearning »

dialup_sounds wrote: post #10
veltas wrote: post #2

>Coca-Cola has used the new generation of codes in parts of Latin America for refillable bottles, with the QR code allowing the counting of refills so that a requirement of 25 before recycling can be enforced. More tracking!

After careful consideration I've decided that I'm more concerned with the waste and pollution caused by single-use plastics than I am the privacy rights of polyethylene bottles.

How is this not moving more responsability and work onto consumers rather than tackling the problem at the root.

Coca-cola had a 2.7B EBTDA last quarter. Marketing needs to stop blowing smoke up people's rears.

If they care about the environment, they can just use glass! Install mega watts of renewables to provide the power for glass recycling. Zero plastic in the environment.

Companies need to stop externalizing their costs into environmental problems and telling people it's their problem for buying it.

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