The joy of QR Codes
Posted on: November 9, 2006Turns out the glitchy noise logo on Ute Hicks press pass I mentioned earlier has, like calligraphy, a long and decorative history. Well, the latter I'm sure of. Dalian Hansen clued me in — it's a QR Code! In his words:
"Actually, that image is a high tech UPC code. It is all the rage in Japan, and originally we intended to do more Japanese language articles. Anyway, you can take a picture of the noise with your camera phone (in Japan) and it translates it into a url or eMail link. I sell a lot of designs with it to Japanese from my web shop, which has more information about the "QR Code" if you are interested to understand how it works and how cool it is :)."
Cool! So, courtesy of the elegant Dalian and his QR Code skillz, here's "Torley" and "http://www.torley.com" represented in QR Code:
Better yet, I wonder if this will scan:
So, why are so many of us still stuck with bar codes? That's what I'd like to know. Compare.
Thanxies Dalian!
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November 10th, 2006 at 8:00 AM PST
Hey it works on my Nokia with the Kaywa Reader installed:)
Title: Torley
URL: http://www.torley.com
See:
http://reader.kaywa.com
Supported Phones
http://reader.kaywa.com/en/phones#supported-phones
You can create your QR Code here.
http://qrcode.kaywa.com
And create a QRCode for your blog:
http://feed2mobile.kaywa.com
November 11th, 2006 at 5:49 PM PST
I'll have to hunt it down, because I can't remember the name now (and it was a hard find to begin with), but I've got a very small and simple software QR reader/generator. I post QR codes to my livejournal every so often with messages and such. You can fit an amazing amount of info in one. I think I must've been half-asleep when I posted on that picture of Ute, because I would've told you all about QR codes if I was, y'know, here.
November 12th, 2006 at 12:30 AM PST
Thanxies for the tips, Roger — I'll check those links out.
Hehe Elix, sounds like another one of your many eclectic interests. Now that we're on this trail, no doubt I'd like to see more QR Codes in Second Life… I wonder if anyone's made an inworld QR Code scanner that works somehow? (Likely not based on image-recognizing the texture, but one scripted object reading another.)
November 12th, 2006 at 3:35 AM PST
Indeed!
I'm interested in cryptography and other ways of displaying information. By the way, the watermelon version of the QR code you made WILL scan properly. However, the flickr zeitgeist won't–the code's distorted by the compression.
The link I put in this comment is to a free QR software encoder/decoder by Psytec. It's a Windows app, and it runs fine in XP. (I haven't tested it on other versions.) The dialogs are all in Japanese, but it's fairly templated like a standard Windows app. Quick rundown of the menus:
File (F) - New (N); Open (O); Save As (A); Save (S); Scan a QR Code (D)**; Exit (X) — **I'll explain this functionality in a second, though it's pretty easy.
Edit (E) - Undo (U); Cut (T); Copy (C); Paste (P) — the standard Windows shortcuts apply; these apply to pasting into the text fields
View (V) - Toolbar (T); Status Bar (S)
Help (H) - About (A)
There are four tabs below the QR codes; Personal address (name, name in furigana for pronounciation, telephone #1, #2, email address #1, #2, note), mail something (I'm guessing this is Japan-specific, I really can't make a ton of sense with it, but I can't read the kanji), bookmark (name, URL), and text (anything you want, up to the QR limit) — the text tab also has a password option, for seeeecret things I guess. The dropdowns on the side deal, respectively, with error redundancy (how much of the QR code can be lost and still carry the info, 7%-30%), data level (how 'big' the code will be, how much information can be stored–directly proportionate to the size of the data field) and the checkbox is auto-size, module size (how big are the squares — think font size), and the carrier (DoCoMo only, afaik).
The toolbar has most of the options from the menu bars. The Scan QR option (the computer monitor next to the Save diskette) is the neat one. When you click it (or choose File > D), your screen freezes and tints over with a light blue mask. Your cursor turns into a crosshairs. You can then make a rectangle selection anywhere on the screen, much like photoshop. Obviously, you want to scan a QR code. You will not be able to move the PsQREdit window while in 'scan' mode, so make sure it's clearly visible. Make sure to scan outside the big squares that mark the corners, and only scan the QR code itself. If you get an error, you either didn't scan the code properly, or whatever you selected is not a QR code. If you scan a valid code properly, it will populate the appropriate tab with the appropriate information. If you've got a saved QR code, in JPEG or BMP format, you can open it. You can also click 'new' and make your own. Psytec's QR generator can save as bitmap or JPG. The open and save boxes are modular Windows boxes, just like most any other Windows app.
This is really cluttered to crap. I should make a little tutorial with nice eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one (oh, you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant).
I duno how an in-world QR scanner would work, unless you took some kind of encryption as a notecard, and duplicated the contents of the notecard onto a QR code and slap it on as a texture, and then have a script for decoding the encrypted notecard… but then all you're doing is gluing two data encryption methods together. That being said, if you drop a QR code on a prim, and it's not distorted, and you can get your camera head-on, I see no reason why you couldn't use Psytec's decoder on it. I need to get to bed so I haven't tried it, but it stands to reason it would. Works on different browsers, works in Photoshop…
November 12th, 2006 at 3:49 AM PST
Also! http://www.denso-wave.com/en/adcd/product/gt10qbus/index.html
A BLUETOOTH QR CODE SCANNER GUN!
I WANT ONE BUT I WILL NOT EAT IT. MAYBE.
Maybe I'm just a little addicted to nifty, quirky gadgets. This has a very valid and important purpose in, say, shipping… but I woud use it at my whims, shooting QR codes with it just for fun.