QR-Code

We found in the coders’ section at Google project Zxing (definition is copied+pasted below).

“ZXing (pronounced “zebra crossing”) is an open-source, multi-format 1D/2D barcode reader library implemented in Java. Our goal is to support decoding of QR Codes, Data Matrix, and the UPC family of 1D barcodes. It will provide clients for J2ME, J2SE, and Android.

Why? There are several great readers out there, and there are bits of open-source code already for decoding, but not both at the same time. We want everyone to have access to some great source code to play with, so we decided we’d try an experiment, and open up our in-progress effort. Maybe some of it will be useful to you — maybe you can help improve it.” (Source Google)

At this point the status of the project is “pre-alpha“, but it can become a great project. Great name, great logo, great idea. ¡Good luck!

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!

We have talked about this organization before in this blog, but we remind you here what the MC2 is by copy+pasting their mission statement: “To create standards to ensure interoperability, to ensure a business framework for profitable growth, and to encourage and educate the market in general. ”

You can see all about the Mobile Codes Consortium at http://www.mobilecodes.org or read their full mission statement document.

Recently they posted a new document about their last activities and thoughts.

“Global mobile industry bodies GSMA and OMA commit to drive worldwide mobile barcodes standards” - December 17th, 2007.

After quite a few requests about “how to generate a QR-Code” and what libraries are we using we will tell you in this post and also other ways to do so.

Let’s start with the library we use to generate QRs online. You can find it here. It’s a japanese website but the very last link links to the library itself. There will probably be other libraries available on the net, based on Java or other languages,but the one we are using is the one we just mentioned.

There are also some off-line software to generare ourown QR-Codes. Here you have the links we found:

• QR-Factory
• QR Editor (japanese website)
  
• Barcode Generator

So far we just found there three (all of them in Japanese). From Google Translator you can easily translate from Japanese into English. We hope this post to be helpful and you have any question we will try to answer :)

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!

As we recently posted in our comparison table of 2D codes, the two types we think are the best options at this moment are QR-Code and Datamatrix, but what are the differences between them?

The evolution of 2D code systems and cellphones technologies in Europe/US and Japan has been opposite, that is, while Europe/US developed the first 2D codes, Japan mobile technology and connectivity has spread out so much faster.
Maybe that is why Datamatrix defined in 1989 left out of its specs Kanji symbols (japanese) and make them useless for this community. Denso-wave then developed QR-Codes in 1994 and it allowed the usage and growth of this technology in Japan.

If we go through Semapedia white-paper we find three main differences between them:

1. The minimun size of a Datamatrix code in smaller than any other. “Datamatrix has proven to be the most space efficient of all 2D symbologies”.
2. QR-Codes can embed kanji signs (japanese symbols)
3. QR are codes rrrrule!! (this one is not in the report. We added it ourselves because it’s true)

The report is 5 pages long and we truly recommend reading it (specially the part against proprietary codes).

Space efficiency
This advantage is not such when talking about cellphones. If we try to read a very small code there are usually focus /macro problems and a very small code is impossible to read. In the other hand the amount of data we may want to embed will be in most of the cases a URL.

Densowave developed Micro QR Code for reduced surfaces, but we don’t believe this is going to be critical on the end-user.

Kanji
Before the Internet the physical world limits allowed standards not to be very strict (or at least to be slightly different from a geographical/idiomatic area to another). Now, world is more interconnected than ever and if you leave out symbols, cultural aspects, etc… that before may seem irrelevant now can put you out of business.

We don’t know how QRs manage other symbols (e.g. arabic). If anyone has information we will add it to this post.

QR-Code rrrrule!!!.
This one is clearly a subjective advantage, but in a market where efficiency is a must, esthetics are a key-factor and in this aspect QR-Codes are generating more traffic in blogs and creating more trends that Datamatrix in the end-user.
Coexistence

We do believe on the coexistence of this two 2D codes. The fact that exists more than one open-source alternative balances the system and avoids temptations on charging money for using this technology.

Main 2D-Code readers can decode both QRs and Datamatrix.

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)

We have seen and received some materials about colored and funny QR-Codes. Here you have a summary and some conclusions we have reached so far.

There a two groups of 2D color codes depending on what they improve:

• more design (+ cool)
• more information (+ bits/mm2)

More design…

QR-Codes production, either colored or or with embedded images is possible thanks to the information redundancy based on Reed–Solomon error correction that allows us both having cooler codes and paper doesn’t need to be perfect conditions to be read. This tricks can be a differential element, but in some cases is not good to be too different form the standard.

• From Kaywa’s API we can generate color codes and save ‘em in different formats directly from the web.
• Developer version http://marco.kaywa.com/work/color-matters.html
• This app (yes,it’s Japanese only) you can generate on-line QR-Codes with embedded texts, colors, etc… Moji-Q. If you are not fluent with Japanese you may use Google’s Japanese-English translator (still Beta, but does pretty well)

More information…

Microsoft is taking the lead in this field. The base of these 2D-Codes are smaller images (triangles) and different colors. Obviously the number of combinations of the element is much higher in a colored 2D code and therefore can fit much more data.

The problem that has this system is that nowadays the optical quality and resolution of the cellphone cameras is not enough to capture the code properly.

Microsoft Press release: International Organization Licenses Microsoft’s New Multicolor Bar Code Technology for Identifying Audiovisual Works

We are going a little bit off-topic but one the applications of these codes can security codes based on nanotechnology applied to the printing process. See Datatracedna.