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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'

#41

Post by turtles3 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #34
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…

We have written language which can do all that with no technology at all.

Indeed, we also have technology that can read the written language. Seems like that would be the way to go, and you get to keep backwards compatibility with eyeballs

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

#42

Post by wakawaka28 »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #38
wakawaka28 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic bags make sense when people are carrying all their groceries on foot from the store to their homes. If the same people had to put their groceries in a car to be jostled about, I bet they wouldn't like their liquids in bags that can leak and leave a mess in their expensive cars. I think a lot of people like glass, but I haven't seen a recycler want it in a long time. So is it more responsible to buy glass that…

> but I haven't seen a recycler want it Perhaps that is a US problem, in Europe glass recycling is fairly Universal at all recycling centres and most neighbourhood streets have below ground waste containers for glass. At least in my reality the issue is that Retailers have virtually eliminated glass alternatives from supermarket shelves. Other than beer/wine and some 1.5L juice bottles, pretty much everything else is…

Glass beverage bottles are unpopular in the US too, but at least in places I've lived the recyclers don't want glass anymore. I think the only commercial glass recycling that is energy-efficient (that is, competitive with using plastic) is bottle washing. If you buy beer, wine, or anything else in glass here, which is not exactly rare, you usually have to just throw the bottles away.

I would be interested to know if your country subsidizes the glass recycling or if it is legally mandated. I'm also curious about relevant regulations in the US too. It might be the case that we require a level of sterilization for bottles that is more strict than other countries, that makes it uneconomical to recycle. There are so many possible factors. Recycling is a very low-profit industry and it is often operated at a loss. In some cases the recyclers throw away almost everything, keeping only certain easily separable stuff like aluminum cans and clean cardboard.

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

#43

Post by cr125rider »

cxr wrote: post #14
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…

Better yet: don’t mark things with what they don’t contain, only things they do. Gluten free, is dumb, contains gluten is much better. What it doesn’t contain is nearly infinite, what it does or might contain is a much smaller list.

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

#44

Post by Dylan16807 »

out_of_protocol wrote: post #18
yonatan8070 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> GUID [...] smallest possible scenario

They don't need an ID that won't collide with anything else in the universe, they need an ID that won't collide with other bottles.

If we estimate 2^37 bottles per year (137 billion) then a minimal tracking number is about 40 bits, a couple more at most.

What's the use case for a signature?

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

#45

Post by DoingIsLearning »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #42
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I haven't seen a recycler want it Perhaps that is a US problem, in Europe glass recycling is fairly Universal at all recycling centres and most neighbourhood streets have below ground waste containers for glass. At least in my reality the issue is that Retailers have virtually eliminated glass alternatives from supermarket shelves. Other than beer/wine and some 1.5L juice bottles, pretty much everything else is…

Glass beverage bottles are unpopular in the US too, but at least in places I've lived the recyclers don't want glass anymore. I think the only commercial glass recycling that is energy-efficient (that is, competitive with using plastic) is bottle washing. If you buy beer, wine, or anything else in glass here, which is not exactly rare, you usually have to just throw the bottles away. I would be interested to know if…

As far as I understand, if you return glass into a recycling centre or to waste management anywhere here it will always be for cullet glass.

Bottle washing here only happens if you return the bottles at a supermarket or other retailers, who then return it (unbroken) to the original manufacturer.

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

#46

Post by dialup_sounds »

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.

That's not how any of this works. The bottler is reusing the bottle 25 times, not the end consumer.

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

#47

Post by Charlie_e »

cr125rider wrote: post #43
cxr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Better yet: don’t mark things with what they don’t contain, only things they do. Gluten free, is dumb, contains gluten is much better. What it doesn’t contain is nearly infinite, what it does or might contain is a much smaller list.

I don't think it's dumb, it makes sense to label something that would otherwise intuitively have gluten (like bread) with a gluten free label. It also lets someone who depends on it not containing gluten (or otherwise suffer potentially serious consequences) be confident that someone has checked over the whole manufacturing process to confirm it.

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

#48

Post by out_of_protocol »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #44
out_of_protocol wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> GUID [...] smallest possible scenario They don't need an ID that won't collide with anything else in the universe, they need an ID that won't collide with other bottles. If we estimate 2^37 bottles per year (137 billion) then a minimal tracking number is about 40 bits, a couple more at most. What's the use case for a signature?

> that won't collide with other bottles

You can generate these trivially. If that bottle id is 100, next would be 101. With 128 bit numbers it's unlikely anyone ever guess an id without seeing it. Less bits - more collisions. Maybe some other number of bits will work

Regarding signature - offline verification, simple self-sustained checker can confirm that bottle is indeed valid one (can't count refills globally though)

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

#49

Post by dialup_sounds »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #20
dialup_sounds wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

I think that the combination of carbon emissions and physical waste from reusing a plastic bottle 25 times and then recycling it are still likely to be lower than producing a glass bottle and hoping it gets recycled.

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

#50

Post by [deleted] »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #28
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

>they can just use glass Does anyone even recycle glass anymore? I know it used to be a thing but I think fresh plastic bottles probably cost less than even the collection and sorting costs for glass. I haven't seen any recycler ask for glass in ages. >Companies need to stop externalizing their costs into environmental problems and telling people it's their problem for buying it. They are just giving people what they…

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