Enough with the QR Codes | Hacker News Reader

Enough with the QR Codes

ramisayar.com

50 pointsramisayar71 comments

I see people scan QR codes often, and even occasionally do myself; but then, I live in Japan.

Here, QR codes became popularized well before the 'smartphone', because everybody's regular phone has been able to scan them for years. (I think from around the turn of the millennium, at least.) That makes sense, because as as bad as smartphone on-screen keyboards are, entering URLs on a numeric keypad was even worse.

Two days before the OP's blog entry, I just happened to write a note on my own blog in defense of QR codes (not exactly Pulitzer-grade material; see my profile if you're really interested).

That was just because recently it seems to have gotten really trendy in the USA to hate on QR codes, but I think that's like hating on hammers. ("Enough with the hammers!") What people are really hating on (I think) is clumsy and stupid marketing involving QR codes.

Japan went through a similar thing: as QR codes became popular, marketers got all over-exuberant about them and started inappropriately plastering them all over the place, thinking they looked cool. That gradually fizzled out; Japan Inc. has a recent article about it:

http://www.japaninc.com/node/4018

But just because advertisers over-use and abuse QR codes, that doesn't mean QR codes aren't useful. A small barcode that can be scanned with the device that everybody already has in their pocket is a cool thing, and QR codes are nearly that. Especially here.

We don't see them as much in ads in Japan anymore (a mock-Google search box showing what to google for has replaced the QR code in a lot of places). But we still use them in everyday life, and to good effect. Kids snap shots of QR codes to get discount coupons for fast food. Shops have a QR code that will direct you to a Google map of the surrounding area whosing their other locations in the vicinity. One of my favorites examples is when a friend was trying to fix his kitchen; one of the pipes underneath had a metal tag stamped with a part number and QR code, which led to the product spec page from the vendor that made it (loooong URL).

I have more, but you get the point, and it's miller time.

Plus the fact that not ALL QR Codes are URLs to marketing sites.

I have seen plenty of "stick in a microwave" type meals that have a QR code which, when scanned, display nutritional information which would never have fit on the tiny label.

Mind you this is also in Japan so....

For a moment I thought you were going to say that your microwave scanned the QR to automatically set itself.

JAPAN FOR THE WIN! I like that use case...

> A small barcode that can be scanned with the device that everybody already has in their pocket is a cool thing, and QR codes are nearly that.

Why nearly?

> Firstly, that’s a huge security risk in my mind, it’s like I am trying to open an email attachment from an unknown sender because nobody knows who put up these ads.

It's not like opening an email attachment, it's more like opening a URL. The only documented QR code attack I know of consists of a QR code with a malicious URL (http://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=12760). The QR code only served as a 'mask' to the URL, where the users were too ignorant to look at the URL before visiting it.

I don't think embedding malicious code in a QR code is practical or possible, mostly because the amount of data it can hold is very small. The only binary format I know of that is commonly used on a QR code is vCard; the rest are plaintext based formats.

I used the email analogy cause I figured that would be more obvious for people to recognize the security risk... it's hard to explain things like drive-by downloading for non-techy people.

But opening unknown URL IS dangerous. It's like URL shorteners that plague internet since Twitter - you never know where link will take you and what scripts etc. will run in your browser.

On my device (android with bar code scanner device), the experience is that I scan a QR code with a URL, it tells me that the QR code has a URL & shows me what the URL is, then gives me the option to visit the link.

Depending on if the URL is a shortened URL, it is just as safe or moreso than regular browsing.

Is your experience different from this?

I do believe I've found a decent use for them - I wrote an app that can push an iOS mobile provisioning wifi profile to an iPhone - this allows your guests to scan a QR code to have their iOS device connect to your wifi network (without directly sharing your WPA key with them). You can even geofence the QR code so that if it is scanned > 1/2 mile from your home, the profile will not be pushed.

You must use RedLaser to scan the QR code - it is the only that pushes URLs out to Safari (instead of to an internal web-view) which allows the profile to be pushed.

http://www.getonmywifi.com.

There are definitely decent uses for QR codes.

For instance in my lab, we've used QR codes containing YAML to allow any user to load up the appropriate configuration file in a custom built generic-purpose app to interact with a specific tangible system.

A concrete use of that would be as follow— imagine a museum with various installations, all of which you can interact with using your smartphone. Each installation could have a QR code next to it, which you scan from an app— which would then load up the proper UI for you to interact with the installation (the QR code could point to interpretable markup code for building a UI , etc.).

QR codes are great when you need to give your users instant access to more than ~20 characters of information (less than that and is just faster to type) OR non human interpretable information. Unfortunately, most people use them for URLs, which actually fill both these criteria.

FYI: There is an app for Android doing the same (works great): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.proj.wifij...

I printed Marvin the Paranoid Android pointing to a fat QR code with extra text saying sth like 'internets r here... and ur emailz, too.'

One of the best QR code use cases, I believe.

edit: User must have app installed on her phone.

> You must use RedLaser to scan the QR code - it is the only that pushes URLs out to Safari

I believe both Zbar and Zxing do that.

Is there any websites where I can find more good use cases of QR codes ?

A good use case, indeed. Thank you!

Good use case: on a For Sale sign in front of a house or apartment with a deep link to the listing. Much easier than going to the web site and searching.

Sure, QR codes are always a "good use case" when it comes to this. They ARE faster than typing in a link or searching. Doesn't do much good when no one uses the code, though.

Usually they just link to a companies website though and it would have been faster to type it in instead of scanning it.

If QR codes were automatically detected with the iPhone camera app, they would boom.

95 percent of the problem is non-tech people don't know they need an app to scan or can't be bothered with getting one.

I've literally seen a friend of mine try to take a photo of a QR code and complain it doesn't work.

It's like having a PC without a web browser -- what the hell do you do with a URL then?

Context is everything. For example, QR codes are huge in Japan. Witness this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myzLAXtqoa8&feature=playe...!

People literally lining up to take snapshots of QR codes.

The current use of QR codes in Japan seems to mainly be for specials, bargains and contests tied to a physical location (i.e. you don't want it to spread virally). For instance, when a new single is released, they'll put up QR codes that link to random cell phone wallpaper downloads in different record stores, to get you to go around and collect them all (and presumably spend money).

For regular ads, it seems advertisers have moved to the method of showing a picture of a search bar+button with the keywords to find the homepage pre-filled out. (URLs are much harder to remember than words, especially when you barely know any english). I think this practice has come with the rise of smartphones and laptops).

I have lined up for a QR code here. But the site it linked to didn't support smartphone...

Playing the Japan card during discussion of a cultural phenomenon is the equivalent of playing the Hitler card in a political debate.

If there's one thing that's clear, it's that they will do absolutely anything in Japan.

EDIT: In Japan, this is the kind of thing they watch on TV: http://youtu.be/xqoXcLqVemA

Yeah. Those wacky Orientals, eh?

I was just trying to point out cultural differneces in a tongue-in-cheek manner. I think Japan is the least Europeanized wealthy country (the other Asian tigers count too but are less renowned for shocking westerners). As a result, it's often a lot less valid to generalize from Japanese culture to American culture than, say, Australian or German.

There's a world of difference between pointing out cultural diversity and racial stereotyping. I guess the fact that I'm actually kind of into Vermillion Pleasure Night blinded me to the fact that some people might have interpreted my comments as derogatory.

They're not necessarily derogatory, just ignorant. For instance, "least Europeanized" is indeed a generalization to Western culture, just a negative one.

Essentially the biggest reason they are used so much is because of the argument "why not?"

I was in a meeting with the organisers of a pretty big consumer tech event, a couple of clever, successful people, and they mentioned that they were going to be putting QR codes on nearly all branding at the event we were discussing. I, slightly rudely, chuckled and asked why on earth they would do that; the answer: "We've found a site where you can make them really, really cheap - like, almost free - so we might as well!"

The real WTF is... Almost free? Like, they found a company that will, what, sell you an image of black and white boxes for mere pennies? God, imagine the money they could make swindling companies with a per-scan advertising fee! Pixels will be mined like gold!

Apparently nobody in Corporate has heard of a free online barcode generator. You can even print the barcode as many times as you want! Maybe they just do not trust free services?

I imagine it's the tracking and statistics provided by paid services that is the really useful point from business point of view. Marketing people love response tracking.

Nope, in this case it was the creating of QR codes for printing. Don't worry, I did laugh pretty hard right in front of them and told them that it's easy to make them absolutely free - ah well, they'd already paid at this point.

Well you can still track how many people scan it, right ? e.g. by providing a proxy link ?

Yeah sure - plenty of people do QR codes that go through bit.ly, just as possible to do it through any other tracking platform.

bitly provides qr codes for every link generated with their service. Just go to the info page. ex: https://bitly.com/FPUVjU+

As, indeed, they should. If you don't track something, how do you know if it's effective? Measure everything you can.

Like every other piece of technology, QR codes can also be overused and abused. This isn't worth ranting over though.

There are perfectly good reasons to use QR codes. URLs may be long, confusing or just awkward enough to be a pain to type. Sometimes there may not be enough space on the product to put in a full URL. There's no reason to stop the 'madness' as this author puts it - like other pieces of technology, folks will experiment quite a bit in the early days and then settle on good usage practices as time goes on.

We started using them on the print pages of homes for sale that we provide for our clients. The QR links to a google map of the property's address. Usually a buyer would print out the listing and take it with them to see the house. So far it seems to be a much easier way to get directions to the house without having to type in an entire address on your smartphone.

Sample: http://virtualstagingsolutions.com/a/view/1159/print

If you have an Android phone, you can create a QR code for a WiFi hotspot with a WEP/WPA2 encryption key. https://zxing.appspot.com/generator/

They are free to set up, advertisers and marketers understand them (or at least they think they do), they feel very "modern".

QR codes aren't going anywhere is because they are a perfectly attractive novelty for the non-tech world. There is a far better conversion, and ease from using short URLs or even a 4 digit number that will next you the URL, but the QR code will still prevail.

I wouldn't expect QR codes to go away until the offline advertising and marketing world becomes more data driven. Given recent trends, that's unlikely to happen any time soon.

I feel like there's a routine anti-QR code thread on HN once a month and it's always the same argument. They'll die naturally when nobody wants them. For now it seems like certain people want them.

It seems more like people want people to want them so they're sticking around. Sometimes they're useful, but that's pretty rare.

> people want people to want them

LOL Nice.

my biggest gripe with QR codes is that the built-in camera apps on smartphones dot not scan for them by default. Instead I have to hunt through my installed apps to find the "barcode scanner" or whatever.

Why can't the default camera recognize a QR code, either in preview or after taking the picture?

QR codes will be great for users of augmented reality glasses, by having the QR codes represent embeddable 3D graphics.

Like an iframe for the physical world.

My educational startup uses them in our printed assignments. Teachers fax completed tests to us and we can grade them by identifying the assignment through QR.

Example: http://kiteedu.com/assets/print.jpg

I think in SOME situations it's a good thing to have. But there are some horrible uses, such as while I was driving down the interstate the other day, on the complete opposite side to which I was driving, there was a billboard for the National Guard that had a QR code.

There is no way in hell I am or evan can pull out my phone, open the qr reader app, point it at that billboard in a steady enough motion WHILE driving 70mph on the OTHER SIDE of the highway and go to their website. We aren't even supposed to be using devices while driving and the freaking National Guard does that. I hope our tax dollars (wishful thinking, I know) didn't go to this. But it's plain ridiculous.

Personally, I've found them to sometimes be useful.

I use an iPhone now, however they were fairly useful on Android -- a lot of Android forums would show a QR code when you hovered over links to .apk's, which made attachments easy to download.

Reposting my comment from the blog, because it's still "awaiting moderation".

QR Codes do have uses, but everyone uses them wrong. The first and most obvious use is as a replacement barcode. Add to physical products to expand scanning use-cases. But not as a marketing stunt.

The next, which I quite like is for device -> device communication. For example displaying a QR code on your phone and having it automatically scanned at a ticket collection point for Airplanes/Trains/Events.

Apologies for the "awaiting moderation", I was sleeping. It's up now.

I like the QR codes at Best Buy; I use them all the time when I'm just starting to research electronics and I make a visit to one of their stores. It's convenient, I can store it on my iphone for later, and I can read user reviews, etc.

That being said, I'm not sure if they help or hurt sales because when I do scan a QR code, I typically end up doing comparison shopping and typically Best Buy's prices don't compete well with online retailers.

I'm on the wrong side of the planet to check, but I'm bet reasonable money that Best Buy are running privacy-dubious redirection/browser-fingerprinting/analytics on the urls those QR code send you too.

Or if they're not, does anyone have a contact in marketing at Best Buy?

Would a better idea not to have a font that was made for the purpose of scanning?

That way, if people don't have smartphones then they know the url. Those who do have smartphones know what the url points to in case there is something dodgy about the url.

I hate to say it but something like Courier, on a white background and we improve the OCR techniques in the phones?

You mean like "OCR Font?" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCR-A_font

Perfect, I wasn't even aware there was a font for this purpose!

I don't see the point in QR codes, I have never seen an every day use for them and it makes me slightly angry that they have been adopted so heavily.

I do take into account people have found a use for them in niche situations. It just seems these ugly black barcodes could have been avoided by legible OCR fonts with a decent OCR scanner built into the phone. Everyone's happy!

Hardware-wise, OCR is not as simple to process as QR.

When commenting earlier I forgot to mention that I have a personal use-case for QR codes - an easy way to put a page I'm looking at on the PC onto my phone, easier than typing in the URL or mailing the link.

http://code.google.com/p/qrbookmarklet/ (not made by me, just used by me)

I used them for a QR code scavenger hunt once and, even in this tech backwards town, got a couple people involved. This was when they were still new. It familiarized people with our website and our store layout. It also got them asking at the counter for help to find things. All in all exactly what I was hoping for.

This intense hatred of QR Codes continues to baffle and amaze me. Sure, if you use them inappropriately it's a disaster but if you can add something which potentially makes it easier for those with phones to access, then why not?

It's almost like complaining about the over-usage of barcodes on product packaging.

There's a whole website dedicated to this http://wtfqrcodes.com/

Along with this blog: http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/

LIKE!

Please stop using "I don't know where the QR will take me" as an excuse. Any decent scanning app shows the QRs content before asking the user to act upon it. Who would want an app that instantly saves a vcard to their contact list, or opens a url as soon as they scan it?

Nobody remembers the google sesame? That one exampled in itself should stop this thread.

CueCat?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3469692

QR Codes remind me of the CueCat. There are some interesting and perfectly valid use cases, but I doubt QR Codes will be something that most people ever start using on a daily basis.

So far the best use I have found for QR codes is making up stickers than when scaned decode to "sorry i wasted your time this qr code does not contain anything interesting"

It is funny how this topic comes up every month. I guess it's because we somehow want them to add value, but at this stage they don't.

Why is QR codes prevalent?

Because it's cheap and can digitize analog goods easily.

as per use cases: check-ins could be simplified with QR-codes. See http://servletsuite.com/qrcode.htm

The novelty has worn off, so now they're worthless and companies should just stop using them. I'm not sure I agree.

I've made a point to ask people who work in retail stores/shops that have QR codes if they've ever had people scan the QR codes. The most "positive" answer I heard was that they weren't sure. Some people stopped in front of the signs, but they weren't sure if they were scanning the code or following the link or sending an email/sms to subscribe.

Most of the time, it's a flat out no. I suspect it might be different in other places where there is greater awareness or density of QR codes though.

BTW, asking for a use case? Entering secure keys. Initializing OTP code generators. (aka Google Auth, which you SHOULDN'T have to ask about because it should ALREADY be active. Go do it, right now, mid-sentence, if you haven't) Potentially initializing 3 keys for use in a two-factor auth tool for phones and NFC tags. cough.

Wasn't there some big conspiracy that bar-codes would be EVERYWHERE one day???

I saw them on some Churches main signs, I see them on pretty much everything... They are all techinically "linked" to the internet...

Maybe, that "day" the conspirators speak of is upon us?

:-\

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