Rooftop QR Codes Aim to Infiltrate Google Earth | Hacker News Reader

Rooftop QR Codes Aim to Infiltrate Google Earth

mashable.com

13 pointsLiveTheDream21 comments

Why a QR code and not a big freaking advertising banner?

If it is because there are regulations against advertising.. the QR code is still an advertisement, so that shouldn't be a loophole.

Ad regulations are mainly aimed at safety and appearance from the street. I doubt there are many regulations about ads lying flat on one's roof.

As for ad banner vs. QR code, I think the QR code wins, pixel-for-pixel. If you look at that picture in the article, replacing the QR code with some sort of ad at the same size (or even just text) would require the viewer to have to zoom in further to make it out.

I own a company that does this, and most advertisers do prefer to put an ad image instead of a QR code. We focus primarily on sites near flight paths at major airports and the Google Earth/Maps aspect is more of just an added bonus for us so there is some difference in target audience but our clients resoundingly prefer actual ads to QR codes. We've tried selling the idea of rooftop QR codes because they are so much easier to paint than e.g. a photorealistic person who is 250ft tall but haven't had any interest from clients so far.

We used to have this happen all of the time in Second Life. People would throw objects either on roofs, or high up into the sky, which when rendered and seen on the overhead world map, would spell out advertisements for whatever was on that region. Worked surprisingly well for catching the eye.

http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/entry/...

Seems a little pricey. I'm not sure what dimensions would be visible from space (if that image is any indication, you need about 20x20 feet?). How much would it actually cost to print a weather-proof banner that size (and it doesn't have to all be on one sheet) - my guess a lot less than $8,500 + $200 "support" fee (whatever that is).

Isn't it just a bit of waterproof paint and a domain redirection? $500?

I was thinking a vinyl banner, to have it easily interchangeable -- plus painting it yourself could be prone to error.

You'd need a fairly large ad to be visible in satellite imagery. I suspect this service or anything like it would be a better bet in the higher-resolution areas where Google uses aerial imagery.

It's hard to find any concrete details on the resolutions used by GE, and it varies massively by area. I recall their recent investment in one of the (GeoEye?) satellites had a theoretical resolution of 40cm, but is restricted by US regulations to provide a maximum (edit: minimum) pixel size of either 50 or 60cm.

Assuming 1m x 1m pixels, a standard[1] QR code could be fitted inside a 25x25m square. You'd probably want to increase pixel size, and maybe use a smaller version (along with a url shortener, if necessary) to increase the chances of a successful decode.

Aircraft orthoimaging can work at much higher resolutions. An article from 2005[2] shows pictures capable of distinguishing individual faces. I can only assume things have since improved.

[1] of which there are many: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/QR_code

[2] http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2005/09/ultimate_goo...

Painting is much easier for rooftop ads than vinyl. Difficulty installing anchor hardware without puncturing the roof surface, high winds, etc make it much easier and cheaper to use paint. The rooftop ads my company does are typically 50,000 square feet or more so using vinyl sheets that size (it usually comes printed in strips 6-10 ft wide) is impractical. I'm not sure how large these QR codes are but based on prices I've seen for rooftop ads in the past $8,500 is not surprising when you consider cost of paint, labor, and a reasonable profit margin.

This is pretty cool. I hope someone develops a standard for this.

I imagine putting a QR code on my roof that points to a web service that could be interrogated to obtain information about the physical location. Then, processors could be built to automatically index geographical areas from satellite data.

$8500 is really steep, though. What would be the minimum size of the artifact, to reliably enable current satellite technology to read a URL-sized chuck of information?

QR codes are a standard[1] (otherwise they would just be meaningless random dots in a square shape).

[1] http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/qrstandard-e.html

DIY QrCode driveway: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericrice/5031494545/ But google got to it before he was done.

Has anyone here actually ever scanned-and-decoded a QR code?

Hell no. Maybe it's childish, but I just assume every one of them is a Goatse link. Probably at least 40% of them actually are.

While I was at SXSW this year, I realized how easy it would be to print up a bunch of QR codes that point to whatever terrible thing you prefer, and then paste them over the QR codes that are present on every single poster, sticker, etc. The QR code itself has no visual indication of what it is or what it links to, as opposed to a URL which does. Even if a URL shortener is used, the people who make the shortener can block redirects to spammy or offensive/illegal URLs.

Why don't you look at the data in the QR code first? Most QR code readers show you the URL and make you say "yeah, I want to go there".

goo.gl/23nSX doesn't help much.

True, but that's more a problem with URL shorteners than QR codes. Anyway most shorteners you can append '+' to get info before visiting (inconvenient, I know) http://goo.gl/i3wBs+

Yes, probably about a hundred. More than one a week for perhaps a year and a half. Certainly more than 50, probably not as many as 150.

My phone presents the text and asks whether I want to do the obvious - it's almost always been a URL, and almost always the URL itself has said what it is.

I've never had a problem.

What, you haven't?

I assume these include the obligatory "Hello, World".

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