If I was really bored and feeling malicious, printing QR codes to point to this "exploit" and then pasting them over QR codes on random advertisements in the streets seems like a terrible idea.
And..
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fawepark.a...
(by the way, this displays in an awful Spanish for me, because of my default language)
It amazes me how many people I see scanning the QR code to get a copy of the map before they head out on the trails.
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Whilst scanning it and trying to figure out what was wrong, the station master approached me to see what I was doing - since the poster had been installed he'd yet to see anyone use it, and had been waiting to ask someone what on earth it was for.
Still - if there is someone out there that wanted to hack me, they just have to place a qr code in a place where I am likely to have nothing to do for a while... At least with this poster it was actually easy to scan the codes, unlike those on billboards or posted on the tube here in the UK.
Every stop has a poster with a QR code on it, advertising that you can now look up when the next bus will be here by scanning the QR code. The first thing you might notice is that the poster is actually a photo of a QR code on a poster, and is taken at an angle sufficient to render scanning the QR code impossible.
The second thing you might notice is that all the posters are identical - they are, in fact, an advert for the QR code you are meant to scan and not the QR code itself.
So where are these QR codes? Somewhere else on the bus stop? On the post for the sign? No. Reading the smaller print on the poster reveals all: You simply visit their website on your PC and go to a specific URL, which delivers you a page full of QR codes. You then scan the QR code corresponding to the bus stop whose schedule you wish to view.
Couldn't be easier!
Actually, looking at the URL of the QR code image itself, it is for the download URL.
Lothian Buses in Edinburgh has done the right thing: they've stuck QR codes to each of their information signs, which direct you to the correct page on their mobile site, and the official Android app is registered for the URLs too.
I can see the usefulness of QR codes, but I don't think I've ever seen one implemented in a non-trivial or non-gimmicky way. They're a solution to a problem no one outside of marketing had.
Seemed pointless to me. This is how the public interacts with QR codes - they can't do anything that can't be done by pasting TEXT where the QR code would be.
And if you scanned the codes that were given in the different tracts, you were also sent the PDFs and slides of that tract.
It's the future, alright.
If you record audio into OneNote, it'll index the audio, synchronized to any other notes. I've used this on multi-hour meetings, to jump right to places where I think one party said something. Amazing.
Combining a couple projections, I see them going from utterly useless to gimmicky cool for a particular crowd within 2 years.
Doesn't it seem idiotic to duplicate what we already have? (English characters) in some arcane non human readable, punch-card-esque idiocy?
In a few years, all cellphones will be able to read english characters and words. There will be no need for QR punch-cards.
In a few years many people will also be walking around with AR-glasses (e.g. google glasses) which may very well scan the codes automatically and overlay them in the viewport with whatever they want to represent.
Or a 'smart billboard' perhaps: http://mashable.com/2011/04/16/smart-billboard/
Yeah, this would probably work.
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.scan.androi...