I'm doing my part by never "using" one and doing my best not to purchase goods or services that use them. It's like some horrible mutated version of the CueCat.

They're pretty annoying. Marketers were trying to find a way to market products to smartphone users by using smartphone tech, but nobody is going to voluntarily take a snapshot of a QR code just to see an ad. Why would you voluntarily view an ad? Occasionally there are good uses for them, but it's usually of no value. They lack creative uses and offer poor content. You have to be really bored or just trying out the "new" technology to actually take a photo of QR codes.

QR codes are useful for providing a quick link via "old media" like billboards, but beyond that, they're pretty much just a gimmick.
Even using them for exchange contact information will quickly be phased out as more and more phones are becoming Near Field capable.

Way too much work for limited information (except the tracking info the advertisers glean).

GoodyearPimp: I'm doing my part by never "using" one and doing my best not to purchase goods or services that use them. It's like some horrible mutated version of the CueCat.



THIS.

Hope they die.

/work in advertising

quoinguy: GoodyearPimp: I'm doing my part by never "using" one and doing my best not to purchase goods or services that use them. It's like some horrible mutated version of the CueCat.



THIS.

Hope they die.

/work in advertising

Let's not be hasty here...

carnifex2005: quoinguy: GoodyearPimp: I'm doing my part by never "using" one and doing my best not to purchase goods or services that use them. It's like some horrible mutated version of the CueCat.



THIS.

Hope they die.

/work in advertising

Let's not be hasty here...

carnifex2005: Let's not be hasty here..

I'd scan that.

I'm using QR codes right now to make a language learning app for a native American tribe. The parents place the cards with the codes on household items and the kids run around with an iPhone or iPod touch and scan them, playing the word the code represents in the native language.

I'm using QR codes because they are easy to generate, easy to scan and easy to recognize.

I like QR codes. They make me happy.

Russ1642: Kill the QR code... and replace it with something else that begs me to take a picture of an ad. It's not going to happen. People don't want to visit your sites, ok maybe a few do but they just type your name iknto google and voila. It's a completely useless technology.

You sound literate.

I put a QR code on the back of my "save the date" to have the wedding added as an event in the phone's calendar. Only good use for them as far as I'm concerned. And yes, these are CueCats of the 21st century. CueCats were ahead of their time, really.

Why? Because the fWc is mainstream baby!

I use QR codes for entering data into my phone that would be a pain in the ass on touchscreen keyboards.

Sounds like he wants to replace something that's fairly open and standardized, that anyone can make, with something he owns and controls.

...


F*ck him.

How about actually encoding useful info into the QR code.

/right now, using redlaser to scan barcodes. When I scan a QR code I should see model number, MSRP, etc.

You can put any data you want into a QR code, for free. How horrible.

QR codes are a standard, they work well, and they're used quite often now days. I'm sure they'll eventually be replaced with something better, but for now I don't see them going away anytime soon.

The thing about the QR-code is that it is a sign that tells everyone that there is a link there. There might be better and more subtle ways to implement a link, but you would still need a big obvious sign that tells people that the link exists.

QR-codes are better than the old way of simply writing down an URL at the bottom your add that nobody brothered to remember.

I don't think I have ever used the QR-code reader function of my phone much or at all after the first few days when I discovered it and started scanning everything in sight, but usually I ignore billboards and stuff like that anyway. If I ever found myself in need of finding out more about a product advertised on some billboard I would at least know that I could scan the QR-code. Without it there as a reminder I would be forced to memorize something distinctive about the add and google that later.

\ If Bay destroys the QR-code with explosions, he will at least have one scenes of slow moving helicopters silhouetted against the rising sun.

As long as this remains the domain of a proprietary app published by a company you have to "partner" with (read:pay) to use, it won't replace the QR code.

You want to kill QR codes? Make your replacement as free, easy, and cheap to use. Otherwise, you got nothing.

I always thought QR codes were secret messages for us to 'OBEY' 'PROCREATE' & 'CONSUME'.

/Didn't put on the glasses.

IrateShadow: I use QR codes for entering data into my phone that would be a pain in the ass on touchscreen keyboards.

This.

I also use it for offline backups of sensitive data like a PGP key: I have a printed ASCII backup in ordinary text (I could hand-type it if needed, but this woukd be tedious and error prone) and one where each line is represented as a QR code. This eliminates typing errors, speeds up data entry, and makes life easy.

Of course, putting backups on paper is a pain, but it makes security a lot easier.

heypete : Of course, putting backups on paper is a pain, but it makes security a lot easier.

And you can shred that paper when the feds raid you and say, "Um, I don't know the password, and some papers got destroyed when they raided my place".

/hmmm, hand drawn QR code with low quality ink? Spill water, code destroyed :P

/or even better yet, draw it using a pen and an inkwell, spill the inkwell onto the drawing.

lordargent: heypete : Of course, putting backups on paper is a pain, but it makes security a lot easier.

And you can shred that paper when the feds raid you and say, "Um, I don't know the password, and some papers got destroyed when they raided my place".

/hmmm, hand drawn QR code with low quality ink? Spill water, code destroyed :P

/or even better yet, draw it using a pen and an inkwell, spill the inkwell onto the drawing.

I remember reading a short story set in Nazi Germany, where the main character kept a list of names of Jews she was helping to escape rolled up and stuffed inside a quill pen. The idea being that, if she gets searched for whatever reason, she just finds an excuse to write something, and bam, the evidence is destroyed the instant she dips her pen. I thought it was rather clever at the time.

Print out QR code for a Lemon Party / stick on top of advert / lulz

I actually like the idea of QR codes -- less data to enter.

Anyone who went to CES 2012 and noticed QR codes plastered everywhere with a clear lack of enthusiasm to scanning the cards people are given (to gather info) would know QR codes will be around for a while.

QR codes are easy and free to generate. Plus doesn't require proprietary software which is what that company appears to be doing more or less.

I use them to get apps from 3rd party sites besides having to search marketplace

Lots of luddites and imagination-less bastards in this thread. All this biatching and hate over nothing. Oh wait, it's Fark.

To all the "it's cuecat all over again / cuecat of the 21st Century" dorks, I just want to let you know that the QR code predates the cuecat by five years.

Because everyone wants to scan (insert product name here) and be taken to (insert product name's) website where they can get spyware installed on their mobile device

Very useful App GPS4CAM generates a QR code for your logged trips. Take photo of the code with the camera/cameras used and upload to 'puter. Run the desktop app and your photos are GPS coded in the EXIF file.

Not bad for $2.99 or thereabouts.

As an android user that has never bothered once to use these things, do these work with Amazon? Like, I scan a product and it takes me to the product's page on Amazon instead of some stupid ad?

wholedamnshow: As an android user that has never bothered once to use these things, do these work with Amazon? Like, I scan a product and it takes me to the product's page on Amazon instead of some stupid ad?

Not that I know for QR or Amazon, but I've used Goggles to take a picture of the physical product and go straight to Google Shopper.

MBZ321: [:Cue:Cat]

And we're done.

//I haz a cuecat, neutered so it spits out unencrypted UPCs

Lot of rednecks up in this thread.

QR is completely embedded in Asia - everyone uses it, they expand the codes so they can do pixel art with the error checking, and so on. But, no, tell us how much they suck, US-centric morons.

/santorum advertises on fark for christ's sake
//what a foolish place this has become

Thats an 827: Very useful App GPS4CAM generates a QR code for your logged trips. Take photo of the code with the camera/cameras used and upload to 'puter. Run the desktop app and your photos are GPS coded in the EXIF file.
Not bad for $2.99 or thereabouts.
Relevant to your interests:
http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/geotag.html

wholedamnshow: As an android user that has never bothered once to use these things, do these work with Amazon? Like, I scan a product and it takes me to the product's page on Amazon instead of some stupid ad?

You can create a code to direct you anywhere you want, so if Amazon or a seller designed it that way yes. Or you could just download the Amazon app which lets you scan the bar code of a product, and it will direct you to the product available on Amazon.

What?

Everyone thought UPC symbols were an eyesore and evidence of computerized control when they were introduced. Yes, I get they help, but they sure are ugly.

QR codes are like bird droppings on nice things. An annoying splort of data that necessitates me owning and dragging out a smartphone or other device.

If you're doing inventory or other such things, awesome. Keep it small and out of sight. Seeing prominently displayed QRs on things just screams annoying.

I hope it dies.

RedThree: QR is completely embedded in Asia - everyone uses it

So?

A QR code, requires me to perform the following steps:
1) Extract my phone from my pocket, which is likely under a heavy coat for a chunk of the year.
2) Unlock it and boot the appropriate app.
3) Wait for the camera to wake up, then snap the shot.
4) Wait for the QR code to get processed.
5) See a URL or some other bit of textual data.

A memorable set of keywords requires me:
1) Read the keywords
2) Note them to myself
3) Search for them at my leisure.

Cellphone QR code readers are not performant enough, nor are the codes data-rich enough, to really justify their mobile use. I'm fully aware that they're popular in some parts of the world, but they're largely a gimmick, for now, anyway.

For QR codes to be useful, we need to get away from the whole act of scanning them. I should be able to point my phone in the general direction of a QR code and have the phone detect that there's a QR code in its line of sight and decode it automatically. That, of course, means an always-on camera, and that's a huge battery drain, and so there are a lot of technical hurdles.

t3knomanser

1) Extract my phone from my pocket, which is likely under a heavy coat for a chunk of the year.
2) Unlock it and boot the appropriate app.
3) Wait for the camera to wake up, then snap the shot.
4) Wait for the QR code to get processed.
5) See a URL or some other bit of textual data.

Your phone sucks ;)

/When I was finally forced to upgraded from my old school clamshell to a smartphone (impossible to find replacement batteries for the clamshell anymore), I went with a cutting edge smartphone (I already had android running on a hacked B&N Nook (Nookie :D), so was used to the OS already, and I guess I realized that with my salary, worrying about my phone bill going from $35/month to $85 a month was sort of silly since I could make more than that by working an hour of OT on the laptop while sitting on my couch with a movie on in the background).

Anyway, I'm still not completely sold on the utility of smartphones (they're too expensive for what I use them for, I don't really do all of that social media junk, and I guess I would rather do all of that stuff on the Nookie anyway), but there are two uses that I use on a regular basis.

1) QR/Barcode scanning : and my phone does this surprisingly well, I live in California, so don't have to worry much about a coat, and the rest of the stuff you mentioned takes under a second total to do.

2) Traffic maps : so I can see if I should bother trying to drive home, or sit in my office and work more OT vs sitting in traffic.

// other than that, my smartphone sits in my pocket/desk.

// phone has a better CPU than the Nookie, you can't explain that.

Also

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7HnR02kJxY

Kinda cool.