World’s First ‘Wikipedia Town’ Goes Live Today | Hacker News Reader

World’s First ‘Wikipedia Town’ Goes Live Today

redorbit.com

Nice idea but I wonder how long it'll be until the local school kids replace the QR codes with links to 4chan and 2 girls 1 cup.

First legitimately useful execution of QR codes I've seen. In 2 years of Android ownership, not once have I been compelled enough to scan a QR code to learn more about something.

It's a nice initiative and certainly an alternative to sticking up an outdated poster everywhere. However I don't quite understand the benefit of a qr code versus just googling or looking directly on wiki.

I remember seeing a massive qr code on the side off a double Decker bus. Can codes that big be scanned?

Over lunch yesterday a graphic designer friend was trying to convince me to include a QR code on my business cards. We ran through the many steps required to scan a QR code... and end of conversation. It is a very limited technology.

QR codes on name badges at conferences may be useful. But then some kind of augmented reality splotch would be better. You point a smart phone at the splotch and up pops information about the person - name, company, specialities, etc.

Now run through getting your phone out, opening up the barcode scanning app and pointing it at a badge on the chest of the person you're talking to.

I'd prefer to just shake hands and exchange cards. Even Bump▼ is a much better solution with it's problem of ensuring people have the app.

▼ http://bu.mp/

I'm imagining QR codes will really come into their own when the Google Goggles (and later competitors) make augmented reality default to on. Then QR codes will probably just always have a little hypermedia description-augment floating about in space in front of them, and you just have to focus on it to "go" there. I feel science-fiction-y just thinking about it.

I think augmented reality hardware of the future (and smartphones too) will quickly replace QR codes with Near Field Communication.

This assumes everything is capable of being powered. QR codes can be printed on paper, chiseled into stone, engraved into metal; NFC hardware, for the most part, can't. (And even where it can, it won't last nearly as long as the equivalent code. Passive technology usually greatly outlasts active.) There will indeed be a great amount of NFC- and RFID-triggered hypertext in the future, but there'll probably be just as much QR, serving complementary rather than competitive purposes.

I think those glasses will be able to decipher text directly.

I think those glasses will be able to recognise faces directly. Great for avoiding those "Hello Mrs, er, yeah so How are you anyway?" moments.

This made me laugh the first time I saw it: http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/

While your experience surely will always be true to you I know times it has been useful. For instance, at my job there is an app with the lunch menu, and the url to it is on a barcode on the door to the lunch room.

To have contact information on a qr on the back of a business card is a good idea, and I've seen local businesses with their website on barcodes outside their offices/stores.

Not something you use daily, but still a good way to tranfer information from the analogue world to the digital.

I don't like QR codes, no matter how much lipstick you put on them.

Can we think about a better alternative? human+computer readable?

Like a hashtag or something? and let the apps do the walking?

Agreed. I always found QR codes too awkward and cumbersome to use and theres no way I can remember or write one down for later if I don't have a smartphone or camera handy.

The thing is that people with smartphones often do have them handy.

The good thing about QR codes is there's lots of capacity. Hashtags would become more complex and longer as additional locations are included, whereas QR codes look the same.

I understand the capacity point, but for geocoding a geohash would suffice. Place the geohash under the name so mobile apps can read it or people can type it in (easier than a qrcode)

    Eiffel Tower
    #QWERTY986543

Even wikipedia could sell vanity tags to the city council like:

    Eiffel Tower
    #W/EIFFELTOWER

Or something like that

I thought this was going to be about a wiki-style government. But this is cool too.

How, you think, wiki-style government would have worked?

Ahahah yeah anybody can go change the laws, rules and human rights whenever they want, from home :)

And horrible edit wars...

Literal edit wars, perhaps!

Wikipedia already has geolocated entries[1]. Apps that make use of devices' GPS chips together with services like GeoNames[2] or WikiLocation[3] would be easier to use.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Geographi...

2. http://www.geonames.org/wikipedia/

3. http://wikilocation.org/

For a variety of reasons (technical, social, logistical), Wikipedia isn't suited for really hyperlocal knowledge sharing. The same factors that make Wikipedia work well actually work against collecting really specific, uncitable, non-noteworthy local knowledge.

If you're into this sort of thing you should definitely check out the LocalWiki effort: http://localwiki.org We're a non-profit, decentralized project to collect and share the world's local knowledge.

This is in a small Welsh village. If they haven't thoroughly checked for adequate signal strength in the places they installed these, this might be a PR disaster.

From the article: "Furthermore, Monmouth has committed to provide free Wi-Fi throughout the town, making them the first location in the entire nation to do so and making it possible for visitors to edit articles on the fly."

In hundred years they will be known as "QR Code museum" :-)

This would not be possible with the german wikipedia. The Articles would be declared irrelevant and deleted.

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