Talk:QR code

Kaywa Reader

That the kaywa reader is "free" could be discussed: it takes you to their landing-page before showing you the real URL! This could lead to Spam, spy ware and whatnot. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.84.192.238 (talk • contribs) 13:43, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the link from the Kaywa home page pointing to their reader section http://reader.kaywa.com/ shows a simple diagram illustrating the point and decode process of the reader along with a link to the page of download options. They state the reader is free.

I don't have a phone to fully test the download process, but it all appears to be typical multiple page click-throughs to illustrate before providing multiple download path options. I see it requests registration for a pc to phone download option, asking for an email address, but that is pretty typical of software that is free, and still does not involve spending money to acquire it. 65.102.114.180 03:23, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Additional note: the kaywa reader is only a branded (older) version of the "free" i-nigma reader (install: http://i-nigma.mobi, web: http://i-nigma.com). Therefore it would make more sense to link the i-nigma reader instead the one branded by kaywa. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.214.255.255 (talk) 10:59, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

From Kaywa: The Kaywa Reader is free to use: it needs registration when downloaded on the PC/Mac Web, however it needs no registration when downloaded via your mobile phone.

Indeed there is a landing page for URL's which have been created freely. This is for two reasons: a) business model* - developing has a steep cost b) quality control: we think that it's helpful for the mobile novice, to tell him that the page he's accessing could be a 600KB page or also a 4MB mp3. Currently, we haven't gone further with this, but the warning has this important role.

• Business model: accessing commercial services through the Kaywa Reader is possible without an in-between-page.

There are two models: the QR Code API (http://api.qrcode.kaywa.com) or a web based solution based on the API. With the API or the web based solution you can create codes, change them and get live statistics. The API can be tested for free up to 5 codes.

We think it is the most open model possible and still having a viable business model. By the way all qrcodes on Kaywa services are completely free (short codes, short code URL and URL's)

Offline codes (SMS, Telephone, Text, Vcard) are free as well. There is no redirect, everything happens right on the phone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.56.91.137 (talk) 20:25, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Comparisons

We could do with a comparison of Semacode, QR Code and any other alternatives. Could someone oblige, please? Andy Mabbett 11:56, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Image legend

The QR Code for Wikipedia (EN) Main Page It cannot possibly be the whole page (content), so what is it, the URL? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.162.35.47 (talk) 11:00, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

According to the ZXing Decoder Online its the following, presumably the format for a link to Wikipedia:

MEBKM:URL:http\://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page;;

Feeding into Luna QRender or Kaywa the data format is simply the regular URL:

http://www.lunaqr.com/Generate.aspx

If you use the web favourite option you get the following:

MEBKM:TITLE:Main Page - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia;URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page;;

The correct escaping will be listed in the standards documentation, both seem to appear across the Internet. StevenMcCoy 12:29, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

The main image on the this article, WikiQR.png, doesn't work properly. Instead of it being a URL, it is text that doesn't actually redirect you to the main Wikipedia English page like the description says. I have created a working version, WikiQRCode.png, and tried changing it on the article page, but the older version was restored. It would be nice to have an QR Code, on the QR Code article, that actually does what the description says. Iamjamieq (talk) 21:23, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Design QR

Design QR looks to be the brand name of just one of several companies producing customised QR codes, should not the name of the section be changed so as not to endorse only the one company? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.25.49.7 (talk) 20:51, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Free QR Code Reader and Creator

Best QR Code creation web site (http://www.qrcodegen.com): [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.45.19.150 (talk) 07:01, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I think this website should be added to the article: [2]

I am new to Wiki and someone said to put it in the discussion first. You can download the free software and create your own QR Codes (including business cards).

The QR Code could be big, but only if tonnes of people use it!

What do you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hopsta (talk • contribs) 19:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The free QR code generator is quite good: Online QR Code Maker.

I just tried to add another url to a QR Code generator, but it got rejected. My mistake, I think I should have discussed it here before trying to add it. It concerns urbanbookmarks.com. They seem to have added extra features to the QR Code concept, and they managed to gather all the information on how to install a decoder on your mobile. You need to register first though before you can generate the codes, but besides that I think they offer some interesting and relevant information. Apparently they are working on a corporate platform (non-free I suppose), but the website for end users is obviously free.

Anyhow, I just thought it was an interesting site, that's all. No hard feelings if you think different ;)

Pierredecoubertin (talk) 23:11, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Recent removal

I believe [3] should be re-added to the article. The link was recently removed on the basis of self promotion and I have been asked "to discuss why the world (or at least Wikipedia) needs yet another link to a QR related external site" .

My original reply was posted in the wrong area. Thank you to the peer who pointed this out for me. I am new to wikipedia and it's taken quite a while to get to grips with edting / re-editing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.207.204.193 (talk) 18:14, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Firstly let me point out that I did not conceal the fact that I am the owner of the website in question.

QRMe is a unique website that is free for anyone to use and was initially created because there was no central website that gave a comprehensive understanding of QR code technology that offered an insight to this technology from both a technical and layman's perspective. The website is currently receiving over 9,000 hits per month after only being online a matter of months so my intention was not of self promotion simply to generate traffic but to make people aware that a lot more information can be found on QR codes.

There is no other website on the net today that is focused entirely on QR codes. News, articles explaining QR code technology in laymans terms, videos showing the use of QR codes in the real world and a forum covering all aspects of QR codes. I'm sure you'll agree that if you visit and review the website you'll come back with a better understanding of QR codes and their uses. There is enough content on the website to keep you occupied for quite a number of hours.

Registration is required if users would like a QR code generated as the map tracking feature needs to be linked to an account in order to show the user his/her own qr code scans.

May I also point out that the website is a personal site that I have created.

Should this website have been removed by a peer or should it be re-added to the article based on the fact it is an invaluable resource ?

Thank you for your time.

Regards Ian. Admin. QRMe

Qrme (talk) 18:04, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi and welcome to Wikipedia. Wikipedia articles can over time collect long lists of external links and it can become very difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. Our readers are aware of web directories and search engines and will likely use those to search for additional web pages. As wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a web directory or search engine, generally speaking the addition of external links is not really very helpful in furthering the goals of Wikipedia--that being to write high quality encyclopedia articles. If you have knowledge of QR codes it would be much more useful to Wikipedia and its readers if you could add good well sourced (see WP:RS) information to this article. The Wikipedia community has developed a set of guidelines for the inclusion of external links in articles which you can read at WP:EL. Thanks, —Jeremy (talk) 20:16, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I would be willing to bet money that his well-sourced article would include a reference back to his web site, thus circumventing the removal of the link to his site.

Boteman (talk) 23:13, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Unrealistic errors

The images used to illustrate Reed–Solomon error correction are very disturbing. A good illustration would be a QR Code that has been randomly altered. Instead, in the provided illustrations, the lower-right quarter is intact, and the other quarters have been altered in calculated patterns. That is not error correction. Nicolas1981 (talk) 03:42, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. In addition: The coded text is "Morden", which is German for "to murder". I removed the example, until there is a better one. --ISBN (talk) 20:53, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I would create one if I were not so busy right now Nicolas1981 (talk) 05:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Haha, I guess you've never heard of Morden. 155.198.65.73 (talk) 17:59, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I didn't check what happened between the time of the above comments and today, but I don't think the present text is very meaningful. Firstly, it says that it is 'level L' correction (up to 7% recovery), while the images have much more than 7% of their content changed. This is not consistent. Secondly, I tried scanning the images with two separate readers (Nokia and Android), and neither recognizes the distorted images. (Covering 10-15 pixels is about the limit, so it seems.) I am therefore removing the images from the article; reproduced below. If someone feels that the images do belong in that article, then the article should describe clearly how many % of the pixels are changed and why other parts of the decoding chain stop working far below this distortion level. Han-Kwang (t) 12:59, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Just wanted to chime in to say you guys are correct that the images aren't good examples. There are certain regions of the QR code around the finder patterns which hold critical format information. They have a separate error correction mechanism. However, these regions were completely changed in the examples, rendering them unreadable. (That is, the error rate in this special regions was 50% or more, well above correctable limits.) srowen (talk) 16:41, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

The example below illustrates how the QR code handles distortion. Pixels were either added or removed from the original code to examine the borderline distortion level. Both of the altered images remain recognisable using "Level L" error correction.

• 
  Source code.
• 
  Data removed.
• 
  Data added.

Device section

Device section is advertising a fee-applyed product/software called "QuickMark". QR code is an open format, and the article should not by that means promote anything that has a price tag! There are many, many smaller softwares to do the job for free. What's going on with the champs who make up stuff like this :( And no, I don't wish to register at wikipedia. Please don't notify me every time. 89.166.103.110 (talk) 20:28, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Proprietary version?

Just ran across a discussion on this on NPR, and while only partially paying attention I heard an American company is introducing this to the US, but developing a proprietary version of this in an attempt to monetize (make money). Anyone have any details on this?Haverberg (talk) 18:52, 28 May 2009 (UTC) ... Microsoft's "TAG" (http://tag.microsoft.com/consumer/index.aspx) is a different proprietary 2D 'bar' code system using colors. The examples I've seen use black-white-cyan-magenta-yellow as the main colors (easiest to get 'pure' from inkjet printers, I suppose). Their system does not code a URL directly, but references their server site, which then points you to the web site. This is similar to how the 'scan cat' and Tiny URL systems work. The server-in-the-middle means that they can capture marketing data (which they can sell) as you scan. --Paul E Musselman —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulmmn (talk • contribs) 19:50, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

QR code generator

For instructional purposes, this would seem to be a useful QR code generator to include in the article. It lets you choose from phone number, SMS, map location, URL, MeCARD, and ASCII text inputs. There's no registration required.

http://www.mskynet.com/static/maestro

— Wdfarmer (talk) 02:58, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I also wrote one recently and released it under GPLv3. It is limited to 8 bit encoding (not numeric, alphanumeric, nor Kanji) at the moment, but is small and fast and runs on an Arduino.

http://github.com/tz1/qrduino

The code is optimized but it is fairly transparent (250+ lines of C for the frame, about 500 for the encoding process).

Tz1 (talk) 05:13, 27 February 2010 (UTC)thomas-at-mich.com

It would be interesting to know why the online QR code generators create different code pictures. Although I asume that the data ouput would be the same. 81.189.153.130 (talk) 10:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I, too, would like to know how the same URL input results in different looking QR code images from different generators. My suspicion is that each site generates a QR image that (transparently?) tracks hits back through its site before delivering the requester to the desired site.

Boteman (talk) 23:40, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

License

I have changed the chapter about the license to a more objective one. I have visited the Denso Wave Website, which seems to have been updated with a more clearer statement about that the QR Code is license free.

Of course, the ISO organsisation is taking money to sell the specifications information, but the use of QR COde (generating or reading) does not produce any further cost for licensing to anyone.

ISO is generally taking money for ALL of their specifiactions, not only for QR Code.

The japaneese web site is stating that QR Code is public domain, but who can read japaneese. I am missing that phrase in the english translation, this would make this point much more clear...

Lightgunner (talk) 15:59, 25 January 2010 (UTC) Update: Lightgunner (talk) 16:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

QR Code nomenclature

In the ISO standard as well as other places they use their own terminology:

"Module" refers to the black or white blocks, e.g. the smallest code is 21 modules wide. "Version" refers to the size. Version N will be 4n+17 modules wide. "Level" refers to the error correction level.

Tz1 (talk) 05:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)tz

Practical Limitations

Although QR Codes can be large and valid, most smartphones will not properly process even a perfect image beyond a certain size. Different devices will have different limitations.

Tz1 (talk) 05:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)tz

QR-Code generators will not produce identical marks.

It probably should read MAY not produce identical marks.

It is an ISO specification, and there are some ambiguities, however there are a very limited number of sources for a difference, but generally not if the input stream is encoded in the same way with the same parameters. A different Version will have have more or less padding, some strings can be coded more or less efficiently, e.g. "123" can be a number, alphanumeric, or 8bit, and you can mix encodings within the same data bitstream. There are some ambiguities in the masking algorithm (e.g. how do you count edges when determining the pattern is good or bad) so it is possible two masks will be chosen by different implementations. The ECC for a data bitstream will always be the same. The unmasked pattern for the data+ecc will always be the same.

Also, because there is error correction, it is possible to produce actual coding errors from the generator which will be corrected by the reader, so testing a generator can be difficult.

Tz1 (talk) 05:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Usage?

How widely used is this service? Is this a worldwide phenomena? Can mobile phones in the UK use this sort of thing, especially the ones that have internet capability?

Some clarifications would help on this article.

88.105.4.108 (talk) 15:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Usage?

> How widely used is this service? Is this a worldwide phenomena? Can mobile phones in the UK use this sort of thing, especially the ones that have internet capability?

Answers to these questions and many of the previous questions can be found at 2d-code.co.uk

If it helps and you would like a definative answer to a specific question please feel free to email me roger (at) 2d-code (dot) co (dot) uk there is very little I don't know about 2d barcodes! Roger Smolski.

86.0.255.191 (talk) 03:09, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Image

The image used for this article does NOT link to the Wikipedia Mobile Site. It links to a mobile pornographic website and it should be replaced immediately as users are told in it's description that it links otherwise.

JudoJoe (talk) 13:50, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Frank C. Hudetz

The following was added by Frank C. Hudetz (User:Fhudetz)

The idea of scanning a bar code which would then connect you to a URL was conceived and patented by a U.S. Commercial Printer, Frank C. Hudetz in 2001. The Hudetz patent (USPTO # 6,199,048)was issued in 2001 and assigned to the Neomedia Technologies Company. It is used today by many companies who desire to use multiple codes as a marketing or enterprise solution

Not sure if writing about yourself still violates WP policy, but I've slimmed it down and rephrased it to be more NPOV. --Daev (talk) 00:08, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Factual problem

There is a factual problem with the following

In 2011 a games developer company called Media Molecule released a game called LittleBigPlanet 2 which had QR Code technology intergrated into it. You would look for the QR code on the games dedicated website, lbp.me, then you would hold the QR code up to the camera and the game would automatically take you to that level. (read the wikipedia post on LittleBigPlanet 2 for better understanding.)

The problem being that it is still 2010

115.128.28.94 (talk) 11:56, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

suggestion re links

HOw about adding links for "QR Code generating sites" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.82.15.222 (talk) 17:06, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Usage by Business and Government

I'm new to Wikipedia and don't feel comfortable making this change at this time but...

I think a section describing innovative use by business or government would be helpful. Two examples that come to mind:

• New York City's plan to use QR Codes on building permits. This will put a QR Code on the permit that is required to be posted at a construction site. Anybody could then use that code to quickly verify the building permit, look up public information related to that permit, quickly call the appropriate enforcement agency regarding the permit, etc. See http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/22/nyc-qr-codes-on-buildings/

• Certain airlines in the US support a paperless boarding pass. When you use a paperless boarding pass, you get something that you can display on your smartphone that includes a QR code. This QR code gets scanned when you would normally have to present your boarding pass (e.g. at the security checkpoint and when boarding the airplane). See http://www.tsa.gov/approach/tech/paperless_boarding_pass_expansion.shtm

• QR Codes: Driving Sales and Engaging Customers on Television http://www.d2analytics.com/2011/05/20/27/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.44.63.238 (talk) 01:14, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Steve609 (talk) 14:33, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Capacity must be incorrect

Maybe I'm overlooking something, but how the hell should a code consisting of 32 x 32 bits (as in the example image) be able to store thousands of bytes?? 80.187.96.91 (talk) 16:07, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The capacity varies by the size of the image: QR code capacity table. A version 1 (23x23 modules at level L == 35 alpha numeric):

The largest version 40 can handle multiple kilobytes (177x177 modules at level L == 4296 alphanumeric characters). Here is a mid-sized code, although I'm not sure of the level:

Autopilot (talk) 00:00, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Exact characters in the different sets

What exact characters can be represented by a "numeric" or "alphanumeric" code. In particular are the colon, slash and dot needed to represent URLs included in the "alphanumeric" code or does the "binary" code have to be used? I also see a reference in one of the links to using uppercase being more efficiant than mixed case but I can't find any info on this in any size tables. 130.88.108.187 (talk) 11:54, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

model 1 vs model2

What is the difference and which one does this article primerally describe? 130.88.108.187 (talk) 12:27, 31 May 2011 (UTC)