QR-Code

QR-Codes are now spreading in Canada. Following interview presents Luna Development and their works and projects on QR-Codes.

They present QR-Codes as “the link from physical world to the virtual world”. It’s quite a common and clear description.

Luna speaker talks about: inventory codes, dynamic systems, etc… but like in most of the cases their business model does’t look clear. For what we understood they have developed a reader based on Windows Mobile platform (this company is very close to Microsoft® and defend “ad nauseam” Microsoft Mobile®).

However, the good news are that big companies all over the world are becoming interested in QR-Codes. Now in Canada, soon in the US.

We just found an add-on for firefox that automatically generates a QR-Code containing the URL we are currently visiting.

If we want to add a website to our cellphone favorites, test a URL visualization (without typing the whole text) or to read some text on our way home we just need to capture de code fromour screen.

What are you waiting for… Mobile Barcoder Add-on?

We have seen during 2007 some projects oriented to link an ID (number) to a URL embedded into a 2D Code. Shotcode, Shortcode or Mobiletag are maybe the most relevant.

It may seem trivial, but the character limitation of QR-Codes can make the process of embedding a URL into a QR-Code an inefficient task, because the more data we embed the bigger the code will be. In other words, in many cases we will need more physical space (mm2) than the one we have available in order to fit the full web address.

These projects have focused in reducing the required area to the minimum in order to embed a QR in an acceptable space efficient manner.

This may seem a good idea, but when applied has turned out to have some problems:

• You need a special reader (their reader) and connecting to a server (their server) in order to associate and after be able to read those codes.
• Not-free
• Nokia barcode reader application that comer with Nokia N95 does not read these codes and shows only a number.
• They don’t seem neither to be supported nor related with the rest of the mobile industry. They are not present either in open-source projects such us Zxing.

This business model would be like starting a phone operator with your own number system, own terminals and hoping that everyone will buy it. It is understandable but with very bad odds. In the other hand, this is holding up the development of this market, confusing the end-user and making more complex the standardization process.
We believe that an efficient construction of the URLs to be embedded (Ex. using the IP + a numerical directory) and the constant improvement of optics and macros on the cellphones will turn down this kind of projects.

Technical documents on compression levels and QR-Codes sizes from Denso Wave:

Compression levels - http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/qrstandard-e.html

Module sizes - http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/qrgene3-e.html

Micro QR - http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/microqr-e.html

We do believe that QR future as well as satellite business models will be based on using them, developing applications or building professional readers, just like Denso-wave (the company that invented them) is doing. 2D codes are means not goals by themselves.

Note: As we have said before, if there is any wrong or inaccurate information please tell us and we will be glad to correct it.

It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.

May this last post be a serie of predictions, hypothesis and wishes about the future of QR-Codes.

1. Datamatrix (en B2B) y QR-Code (en B2C) will consolidate as 2D standards all over the world.
   
2. El Mobile Codes Consortium – MC2 will play ICANN’s role in internet domains name field. It will establish and reach a consensus in between operators and handset COs, the codes to be used, the different kinds of data to embed and the criteria to do so.
3. All projects and attempts based on non-open-systems and third-party-dependent to read and/or generate codes will fail. First 2008 post will talk about this point.
4. All handsets in Xmas 2008 Phone House catalogue will include 2D code reading software (Datamatrix and QR-Code). In a further future camera and decoder software will melt, but this won’t be during 2008.
5. December 31st 2008 of La Vanguardia (Spanish newspaper) will include at least 5 codes (Datamatrix y QR-Code). We published the first one ;)
6. We won’t able to walk down the Rambla (Barcelona) without seeing at least 5 2D-codes in ads, urban elements, etc…
7. We’ll tell our friends about this blog and they will not stare at us putting QR-Eyes
8. Google will buy us for an obscene amount of money (well, this one is more a wish than a prediction, but everybody in the internet community has it)

Probably will will fail more than one prediction, but if we were to pick one we wish #8 to be the one. ¡Happy 2008 everyone!

Elena has sent us today the following link: Cube4You. We found an interesting use of QRs here.

This solution is valid for product web pages or printed ads, so user can be lead from a photo in a newspaper to a web page for instance.

Optical/macros of most of cellphones aren’t optimal to read these small codes easily, but things a quickly changing and we believe trends are that photos will in some cases come with a QR pointing to a URL with extra info.

It’s strange, but at Cube4You they are embedding the content of the QR in “free text” mode and not using a URL.

Comment: The main reason why we added this post is that we loved this single-color Rubik’s cube. I hope I’ll be able to figure it out once I get mine delivered.

Last november 20th we posted “Estoy en Google, luego existo” where we pointed that Google has taken QR-Codes as standard and presented their new service Print Ads.

It is a quite innovative and confusing service (even more if you don’t know what QR-Codes are). For those who want to know more about it, Google has developed an on-line demonstration on this service and interesting business model.

View the full list of newspapers [PDF]. So far this service is only available at the US, but looks like it’s going to spread all over the world

Yesterday we found out thanks to Roger’s blog from Kaywa that Google has launched their Print Ads 2D Barcodes.

Everything we have written in this blog now loses all its sense (if it has ever had any). All of the hypothesis and predictions must be left behind.

QR have succeeded and they now are part of Google. Let the QR-party begin!

Today’s post title is paraphrasing “I shop therefore I am” by Barbara Krueger (http://www.barbarakruger.com/) who also paraphrased “I think therefore I am” that a guy named Descartes said once (he has not a website so we cannot link ;).

“Bonus-track”

For what we see in their page, Google is planning to capilarize into the physical world. At the same time they are presenting QR codes the offer their services as a traditional paper-based agency.

Whoa, what a day!

Today we recommend one of TED Talks. They started some years and the whole conferences are being published under the sponsorship of BMW. Jan Chipchase talks about the future and usage of mobile technology from a philosophical perspective.

It may sound too much (it’s not), but this is without a doubt the most important post in this blog, that’s why it’s the only off-topic we have. If you were to choose one thing out of this blog remember: you have to watch these conferences.

Besides the recommended conference there are many more that make you desire to be born with more intelligence.

Thank you BMW! If I ever have the money I’ll buy a car or yours, or maybe a key-chain

We detect a consensus when browsing QR-related websites and comments we read that states two requierements for QR success to happen:

1. codes standarization
2. global access to a reader

We have dedicated some posts to standarization issues and MC2 is working on it although some think that W3C should take care of this (maybe it is not a bad idea since two technologies are tightly related). Most of readers are downloadable (via SMS or web) and need to be installed into the cellphone (.jar and other) but until they don’t become part of its software it will not be transparent enough.

Until readers quit being “plug-ins” attached to an existing software and become part of the cellphone or other device and “met-in” the global access won’t bea reality. Good news are that some Nokia terminals are already going through this “melt-in process” and include a QR-Reader.

Another example of plugins are CMSs like WordPress (content manager used by qrcode.es). There is also a kind of “darwinism” by which best plug-ins melt with the main programming structure and become a function of it.

For your information, curiosity and acknowledgement to its creators we comment the source and functions of the main plug-ins we use in our blog.

• WP-Cache, by Ricardo Galli Granada
  Improves the performance and reduces response time when processing pages. By the use of an efficient cache system reduces the resourced requiered to manage the web traffic.
• All in One SEO Pack, by uberdose
  Increases the blog’s findability. When activated, extra options/fields appera in the post edit section oriented to improve our position in main search engines.
• Gengo , by Jamie Talbot
  Allows the edition of a multilingual blogs (in our case Spanish+English), but it is a flexible enough plugin to manage languages written right to left
• WP-QRcode, by Maou
  Little QR-Codes shown next to the post title (H1s) are URLs that link to the post and are dinamically generated and cached by this plug-in.
• WP-SWFObject , by Jim Penaloza Calixto
  Easily and quickly embeds .swf objects and youtube videos using SWFObject library.

If you want to know more about lava lamps in the photo you can watch them closely and even buy them at Google Store.

We recommend reading: NORMAN, Donald, A. “The Invisible Computer” (look inside link)

Last Pet Shop Boys’ project stands out for their use of the vanguardistic usage of a language, technology and aesthetics. One of the videoclips includes an original animation based on QR-Codes.

It’s worth both watching the video and reading through the contents of the website which are interactive as well.

It’s amazing to see how the new technologies (every time less new) jumpinto artistic works and distribution business. PS Boys have algo posted a jukebox so user can listen their last job and links to a few on-line music stores.

It’a a shame that innovative people are always the same people.