Comment by Macuyiko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Macuyiko | Hacker News Reader

Yet again another barcode / QR proposal.

Can't speak for the Americas, but here in Europe QR codes aren't used that much, I feel, except maybe for mobile payments. Compare this with China, where QR codes are in literally every store, each taxi driver has a printed one nearby and even street food cards use them to pay. I can't see this one becoming popular, given how many are printed on glossy / dirty paper (often using black and white printers as well). I am amazed though how well the standard QR code works in most cases, even with everyone adding an icon in the middle of it (and basically removing error correcting redundancy).

An interesting QR thing I picked up last time I was there is how circular QR codes are becoming more popular, see e.g. https://irf.fhnw.ch/bitstream/handle/11654/17880/Fokusreport... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShotCode for earlier approaches but WeChat has started using its own thing, kind of like Facebook and Snapchat are doing: https://chinachannel.co/wechat-launches-new-mini-program-qrc...

I think it's the same for the Americas, but just because the average person doesn't use QR codes very much that doesn't mean that such technologies aren't being used in ways that aren't widely reported. For instance, I know someone who placed small barely-visible QR codes in videos that get passed off to editors so that each clip and frame number(and other info) can be detected programmatically despite editing software stripping out metadata. I think QR is one of those things that solves very niche problems that even the average engineer might not be made aware of.

People are quick to point out "nobody uses QR" but it's not exactly fair to expect ubiquity from something like that. My response would be the same for those in this thread saying "people can't recognize JAB codes like they can with QR." Well, those who find a use for JAB codes are probably going to be the people using them 99% of the time(maybe more than QR because of data density), thus they're almost certainly know to know how to recognize them.

Another interesting use case: Crowdmark[0], a digital grading platform uses QR codes printed on test pages to match these up to the correct student when they are scanned without the need for any manual matching process.

[0] https://crowdmark.com/

People are quick to point out "nobody uses QR" but it's not exactly fair

I think everyone uses them, but they just don't know it.

Pretty much every label on every consumer good (in America, at least) from cough syrup to Coca-Cola to computer chips has a tiny QR code on it. But since people don't actively engage with the code, they don't realize that it's there, and is a big part of the process of getting things from raw material to store shelves.

Every single container, crate, item and slab of raw material at work has a QR code attached.

They are fantastic for that use case as with high levels of error correction you can read them in a rain storm when one corner is missing.

That and every UPC scanner in existence seems to read them no problems.

On the other hand, this requires color ink. Traditional QR only needs black and white.

At my work everything has a bar code on it. It seems carry have enough information.

High capacity code have probably different applications. I haven't seem them anywhere yet, but there are several products around them. I think printing a public key with such a code on a business card would be cool.

I blame previous dev he’d apparently never heard of primary keys so he had to put way too much date in the QR code.

Facebook and Google use QR codes to link phones and desktops. It shows the QR code and your point your phone at it and that's it. I can't think of anything quicker. People sometimes say they're ugly. Who cares? You'd rather type a load of random crap instead?

QR code is pretty minimal in the US too. When they first hit it big, there was lots of talk, and they started to pop up all over the place, but it never really solidified in the market.

Mostly, I trust QR codes about as much as I trust random bit.ly links, i.e. not much at all.

In Germany and UK they are used for train and bus tickets.

In the U.K. we actually use Aztec codes for train tickets, rather than QR. Not entirely sure why.

Oh, my mistake.

But National Express does them, right?

Yes, I think National Express print QR codes on their tickets but very rarely actually read them.

They aren't used much in the US. I'm a bit surprised they aren't used more for storing/communicating keys. An app I was contemplating would use them to pass around ed25519 keys (public for others, private for yourself AES'd).

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