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Microsoft Tag, Smartphone-Scannable Barcodes
dhavleak writes "Microsoft Research has come up with Microsoft Tag: '...just aim your camera phone at a Tag and instantly access mobile content, videos, music, contact information, maps, social networks, promotions, and more. Nothing to type, no browsers to launch!' Device support is fairly extensive (iPhone, WinMo, BlackBerry and more), and tag scanning appears to work quickly and reliably from different distances and angles. Long Zheng has an overview on his site. The Tag is similar to a barcode, but has obvious visual differences — colored vs. black and white, and triangles vs. squares or lines. The technology looks interesting, but will it get the adoption necessary to be successful? What applications do you see for such technology?"
Nokia have had something similar for ages, but the adoption hasn't been all that quick: http://mobilecodes.nokia.com/ However Microsoft do seem to be making it more obvious to the observer that you need a phone to decode these mysterious images.
sounds like QR Code which is widely used in Japan (it's what the CueCat couldn't do in the states).
Microsoft...always trying to re-invent the wheel and try to pass it on as a new invention.
Isn't semacode good enough to enter a URL into a mobile phone?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Hmmm...adverts/spam would be the main application I'd imagine. Also a way to get someone to a URL that they cannot check before hand as the symbol is only machine readable. This looks like a great way to get people to exploit pages.
Tempting!
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
As so many digital-age inventions, this has been done in Finland ages ago. :) There's even a company whose business is built around it: http://www.upc.fi/en/upcode/
As a general tip, it is unwise to strip powered cables using one's teeth.
What original ideas do Microsoft Research come up with? My Nokia E71 has a 2D barcode reader so this is merely an incremental improvement on a well known idea. What next, graphic user interfaces?
QR codes have been doing exactly the same thing for a while now.
And to be honest, I really can't see either catching on... The general public are constantly getting more familiar with the web, and getting more comfortable with finding their own favourite 'trusted' sources of information. Even if Microsoft does somehow convince enough manufacturers to start adding codes to their packaging, are people really going to jump at the chance to instantly look up a load of information on that particular television/cosmetic/breakfast cereal on some arbitrary MS website? Because that's all this really amounts to... a link. More info here.
I mean, imagine - blip that server in the corner there, and in my hand I now have everything I need to know about it - configuration, downtime constraints, owners, where it's plugged into, etc.
Also, supermarkets - being able to do 'extended show info' on a product, based on personal preferences. Allergy information is the most useful one, but even things like recipe suggestions (look, yummy strawberries - have you considered how they might go with cream, or dipped in chocolate?) or ... well, just simple things like collating 'standard information' about stuff in your shopping, like storage life and nutritional value and pricing.
Worryingly..
1) Player launches game
2) Computer "Please take a picture of this 'barcode' to start game"
3) Player does so and gets billed for this instance of playing the game
4) ???
5) PROFIT!!
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
I can see it having applications particularly in things like magazine adverts etc, where a QR/2D barcode wouldn't fit in aesthetically, but something with jazzy colours etc would do. It does open up the potential problem of bad registration during printing, where the colours may not necessarily line up; not a problem with a black-on-white barcode really. Having tried it, the read speed is quicker than on my Nokia N95 barcode reader, but I guess having said that, there is already an existing standard which works fine with "proper" barcode scanners and not mobile phone ones - why deviate from this, in order to accomplish the same, but with the removal from the barcode of the information required (and place it on a server somewhere else)?
black and white, squared boxes. you find them on everything including the paper wrapping your quarterpounder.
Walmart can't convince suppliers to use RFID without resorting to blackmail and MS is trying for world use of a new label just for fun?
Good luck...
The thing I like about payload-in-code formats, like QRCode, is that the information is actually out there in the world with you, albeit in a machine-readable format. The URL actually, you know, is sharing your space.
With a payload-on-server code, the thing in the code isn't meaningful, even in to a machine, unless the WHOLE chain is working -- internet connection, server, the whole nine yards.
QRcode just seems, I dunno, more "honest."
First tag to try
I've always wanted to turn my phone into a cue-cat!(R)
I thought Microsoft Tag was what Ballmer called chair-throwing...
What a damn stupid idea.
So... the brighty "researchers" at Microsoft finally heard of QR Code, maybe suggested that a decoder be implemented in a next release of Windows Mobile, and had to reinvent the wheel so it would be "new stuff" ? That said, it *is* different from QR Code, a QR Code can story any arbitrary data, this variant seem to resolve around URLs to web services that do an awful lot of stuff without the user's explicit consent (other than scanning the code). Damn. Having seen the horrors of ActiveX "automations", it sure don't want this in cellphones! Maybe I sound like an party-pooper, but wouldn't color complicate the whole stuff? I mean, a QR code or a standard barcode can be printed in a black-and-white newspaper page (which are not *that* uncommon), this Microsoft Tag could not.
Don't forget to think different.
Is it just me, or do MS tags look like 50 positions of 4 colors, i.e. 100 bits, which, minus error correction, probably boils down to 64-80. It's obvious you need a server-based resolver to convert these few bytes into an URL. Now guess who manages the server and how much do they want to charge for each entry.
CueCat, QT, it's just a fancy barcode. Except that Microsoft can charge everyone who uses or implements their version of the barcode. Reinventing the wheel IS profitable. This is ODF vs OOXML all over again except that this time there is no open format available as an alternative. Hackers should get right on making an open fancy-barcode standard, and where oh where is RMS on this issue?
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
QR code has the data embedded in the tag. This thing seems to be just a pointer to a record in a MS database. So MS gets a copy of all your data, AND you need to be online to read it. Thanks but no thanks.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
is that they are so g****** ugly to look at. Especially on a large sign.
nosig today
very colorful matrix id ? If you have worked in any kind of manufacturing enviroment, these have been around for a while now. Seems Microsoft have just made it look more trendy ?
And to be honest, I really can't see either catching on...
I don't know about "catching on" in the sense of people actually using them (I don't), but they're incredibly common in Japan, and have been for the last few years. Advertisements have them, magazines have them, McDonald's hamburger wrappers have them... Granted, it could all be a mass delusion of marketroids, but I doubt so many companies would go to the effort of putting the codes on--and continuing to put them on year after year--unless there was feedback saying it was effective.
Barf.
No sig today...
This is ODF vs OOXML all over again except that this time there is no open format available as an alternative.
There are plenty of Free two-dimensional barcodes. Data Matrix is old enough that its patent has expired, and QR Code, MaxiCode, and Aztec Code are permissively licensed. But the advantage of Microsoft's code, which uses color to improve density and looks up data on a server, is that it can be decoded more reliably even from a cheap cell phone camera.
OK, where's the submarine patent?
Oh, they're playing silly games even before we get that far...
Let's see... the second link has a nice deceptive picture of the two technologies not to scale, but printed against each other so it looks like the color coded one is smaller. Then there's an actual scale comparison, but the Microsoft one is only an encoded link, so it contains less data than the tags it's compared with. There's no reason you can't swipe your iPhone over a UPC and look it up online (I've done that with my cue-cat).
And of course "A nice side-effect of this is also the ability for publishers to gather reporting data on how many times it was seen." Nice. Right. Plus, Microsoft gets that data as well. And of course it's got all the downsides of any cloud technology... if the server's down or you're not online you're stuck.
We have to find Hollerith's grave and shove a stake through his heart.
Remember http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode_Battler Doubt the microsoft thing will be as good. I would prefer a good hit score over a load of rubbish reviews and promotions anyway.
I for one thinks that it is great that Microsoft have found an interest in the meta-tag area of business. Don't get me wrong I'm not a particular Mirosoft fan, but there is one thing that they do really well, assimilate technology and push it onto the market. Not always in the best possible way. With all the different types of tags I have to have three or four different J2ME applications installed in my phone in order to utilize them all, not good.
However, I'm not conviced that the colorcoding is the way to go, I mean the printed media is still mostly monochrome. In the near future we'll probably see more active e-paper, color is a problem there.
This is common practice in Japan. Use the mega-pixel camera on a 2-D square barcode, and away you go!
The interesting thing is that you don't actually have to be close to use it.
While it's used for coupons, etc, (McDonald's wrappers all have these barcodes on it), I've also seen it on retail store outdoor signs, large enough to be scanned from the street as you stop at a stoplight. I haven't personally scanned one to see what happens, but I was surprised to see it.
Also, people exchange contact details via barcode. I.E. print your barcode data on your conference nametag.
Essentially it's a hyperlink you can 'click on' in the real world with your phone... 'scan me for more information', and the phone gets the code and then gets additional data from the internet. So yes, it certainly has plenty of application, though Microsoft certainly can't take the credit...
I just tried it on my HTC Diamond which doesn't exactly have the worlds best camera using it on their test site on my 12" 1280*800 notebook screen and it was super responsive. It accepted blurry, angled pictures where you couldn't really make out the triangles.
Too bad it starts the shitty mobile IE browser though. In fact I just changed my mind, this thing is horrible, anything that increases mobile IE usage on the web must be evil and destroyed.
Such great memories. Though, sadly, a look at the GNAA Corporate Homepage would suggest that they've either gone completely tits-up or just stopped making press releases.
What... the... FUCK was that? I know this place gets a lot of trolls but honestly what the fuck was that? I think my head is about to explode.
Yet another way for Microsoft to track what you are doing -- because of course the queries go to their database on their servers with their monitoring.
Reportedly this was one of the reasons for the CueCat's failure, although there were ways you could supposedly anonymize them. Anonymize your phone?
I think QR codes do not funnel through a single provider, although I guess one provider may dominate in certain segments of the market.
I just tested it against the samples.
The microsoft tag, the phone read at 4' away from the screen, requiring only 1/8th of the screen area. The nokia barcode reader required the neighbouring codes to be at almost the full width of the screen (and that, the first one, the QR code I had to hold the phone upside down for it to get)
So maybe microsoft is onto something. However I do see a larger downside, if I wanted to stick one of these in images so people know the site where the image came from. If it gets printed out in black and white, it won't work. Maybe if microsoft offers a sticker printer for it. :p
"You must be new here." The GNAA was perhaps the single most significant staple of the flourishing Slashdot troll culture until about a year ago when they seemed to have disappeared from the face of the Internet.
My phone camera can't even make out a human face much less an intricate pattern of colors and shapes.
I remember a technology from a long time ago (just when webcams were coming out and ISDN was the shizzle) that allowed you to hold up a specially-designed advertisement in a magazine to your webcam, and it would pull out the secrets bits and send your browser to the website. No 2D barcodes, just steganographic data in the picture.
Any one else remember this?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
MS Tag is just a pointer to a record on MS servers. Bogus. I prefer simple QR codes. http://qrenco.de
Visually I think the garish colors of these microsoft codes are going to be hard to incorporate in many graphics designs. QR codes may look busy but given their longtime adoption in Japan they have become iconic and accepted in many contexts. At least QR codes are monochrome - goes with pretty near everything.
It is true that huge binary QR payloads makes for big tags, but that's also a rare application. QR codes are more often used for simply encoding URLs and email addresses, which is fine - achieves what these microsoft tags do, in roughly the same space, while remaining independent on any sole service provider acting as gate keeper for delivering the rereferenced payload, and the tag can be printed in monochrome on darn near everything.
When QR encoded URLs reference server-hosted payloads, the user has the power to choose how and on which terms the client technology parses and retrieves the referenced payload. The QR parser can for example decode a human-readable URL which can be manually transcribed to any web browser.
Aside from these observations, I think Microsoft tags would be almost acceptable if part of the encoded tag data was a URL for the payload decoding service, so as to permit non-microsoft entities to occupy the gatekeeper position. But overall, the net impression is that the Microsoft Tag is too proprietary, not robust enough, and of too little use to be considered a reasonable alternative to QR codes or other forms of payload-in-the-code tags.
QR Codes are used extensively here in Japan, and have been for many years. I also have no trouble at all reading them. Takes less than a second, and I don't need internet access to read them. I've also been amazed at the kind of data: coupons, ads, Business card, small maps, flight information, restaurant food nutritional information, and that's just scratching the surface of what they're used for here.
Frankly, the thing I see killing this one that it relies on a central server. Man-in-the-middle anyone?
When will they learn...?
The legacy of the CueCat is that one sits in a drawer and another on my desk, hacked into a basic barcode reader with an on-off switch, to be used once in a great while for scanning "open source" UPCs into Google. That's not at all what they had in mind, and a whole lot less commercial.
Microsoft wants to reinvent this square wheel? I'm disappointed there won't be any free goodies to hack this time....
Perhaps Semacode wasn't the first people to do this (and provide a toolkit) but I remember having a conversation with friends nearly 2 years ago about this technology and the copyright on the Semacode site is from 2002. I guess at least there's a major backer in the technology but if I know Microsoft, they'll likely patent their encoding and force it on the world as the standard.
Life==Jeopardy. All the answers are right in front us - the hard part is coming up with the correct question.
Go figure. No Android support.
I would lean heavily towards a BW solution, no change out of my 100's of label printers to implement such a solution.
Got Code?
Trojans, Viruses and more SPAM of course.
I have a experience in cell phone marker tracking and IMO colored triangles are not the best solution. Colors are susceptible to lighting condition. This approach may have problem in poor lighting, where camera will have trouble to distinguish yellow from red and green from blue. I've tried colored markers and in my experience pure black and white work best. Also detection of rectangles is more reliable than detection of triangles/parallelograms under perspective transform. False positive for triangles also more likely.
I have a LG Voyager, it is not supported.
So, if you have an LG phone plan on it not working. . .
I'm not sure if you could just install the java compatible one or not, but yeah, you'd think they'd support voyagers, they are rather popular phones.
...because I outlined potential uses 5 days earlier.
Probably my favorite idea is a type of scavenger hunt with clues that are decoded from Free Text tags posted around the city. Find a tag, decode the clue, leading you to the next tag, etc.
The other great use would be integration of a tag into your address book, so that if you want to transfer your contact info, just let someone snap your vCard tag off your phone screen.
January 13, 2010 - Redmond WA After receiving thousands of calls from irate vacationers, Microsoft today issued a warning that taking pictures at your favorite tourist spot should be done with care to ensure that no Microsoft Tag is in frame as there are spammers "out there" littering the visual landscape with tags that point to porn and hate sites.
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
No thanks. I can print an URL on my event poster, and my customers can type that URL into their web-enabled phones. Microsoft's "help" is not necessary, nor desired.
This is not about the technology (the construction of the bar code or the reader software), this is about lock in and a future profit stream for the Microsoft.
From the FAQ:
--
Publisher Use
Q. What does it cost for publishers or businesses to take advantage of the Microsoft Tag solution?
During the beta period, commercial use of Microsoft Tag, including generating, using, and receiving consumer analytics data will be provided at no cost.
--
The whole point of the 'special' barcode is that it is a 'protected' design and can only be used with permission. There is no such a restriction on Q-Codes or DataMatrix.
Also with URLS/content stored within the barcode you don't rely on a middleman to provide the dereferencing service (although you can if you so desire - think minimal URL with reference number).
BTW this format was first used on GameDVDs:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6570871.stm
http://www.techshout.com/general/2007/16/microsofts-high-capacity-multicolor-bar-code-licensed-by-isan-to-lend-a-splash-of-color/
Mungewell.
I've long thought that being able to scan an image with my iPhone that lets me 'pay for parking' or get on a subway would be a really great use for the technology.
[Ego]out
Says the web page to Get Started: "Its a shortcut to fun!"
Wheeeee! I can read MORE ads!
On the other hand, if I go to Delta's website to see my flight information, only Delta really knows I did so - and may not know it's me specifically if I'm not required to log in. In this case, though, Microsoft (or other service provider) knows I 'went to Delta's website' - or whatever else the tag-shortcut did for me.
On the whole, I think that the ability to have real-world hyperlinks (because, face it, that's what they are) is really valuable. On the other hand, I don't think that it needs to be a monetized service. I can't think of a reason that a protocol couldn't be developed that scanning apps would implement; for that matter, given text recognition software, how hard is it to program a phone to read in a url and tell it's onboard browser to go to it? Or any of the other diverse possible applications?
Essentially; what is Microsoft's role in this? Is it a critical role (you *need* the centralized server for some reason), or are they creating a false market segment?
[Ego]out
Google's version of this encodes the URL directly in the tag. Google doesn't have any control over the content of the tag. Unless the person printing the tag chooses to send the data to google, google will never see it. If I want to publish a tag that someone can use from an Android phone or anything else using Google's applet, without Getting google into the loop, I can do that. I can do it without involving any Google products, Google patents, Google copyrights, Google APIs, Google anything, and they need never know about it... and it will also work for people using any of the other programs, created by different people using different software... that handle (say) Datamatrix codes.
No, it's not just like :cueCat. The big difference is mobility. The :cueCat was tethered to a PC, making it almost completely useless. These things make it possible to get more information on a thing you want to buy while you're in the store in front of one.
Now, there are those who say that being directed to marketing material is a less than completely useful thing, but in a world where these things were ubiquitous, my hope is that the amount of intrusive advertising around us might get toned down. "Scan this for more info" is a whole lot less annoying than having a TV-DVD player playing an infomercial on an endless loop in the store. The latest outrage is that the TVs in the grocery store now don't seem to respond to TV-B-Gone anymore.
I don't know how it is implemented by MS but there is a standard for this: the NFC Data Exchange Format. Nokia implements a standard Java API for this.
A defined 16-color palette would have the huge advantage, because it expands your pictographic vocabulary by leaps and bounds. Same as real life.
Microsoft invented nothing. Repurposed the ideas of other people, then made sure it only works if you surrender your privacy.
Hate to break it to you, but most marketers will be pretty happy to get this info, and since it's aggregate I don't really see an issue. It's not like they're going to be either harvesting or giving out info about "Bob's Cell Phone". They're just collecting information about how many "clicks" your posters or bar codes are getting, and which ones are in the best places and that sort of thing. Useful to customer and not harmful to the "clicker".
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Yeah, it was a sad day when their article was deleted from Wikipedia.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
There are quite a few of this "instant access" style 2D barcodes around. One is your basic 2D but bigger, I've seen one which looks like a honeycomb arrangement - it's neither new nor innovativate anymore (I guess that's why MS has finally picked it up:-)).
I'm sure they'll try to screw any available standard and they're big enough to get away with it in the PC market (even though nobody will believe the ad in which Bill is doing his own shopping), but the mobile market has already shown quite a resistance to the MS "embrace and screw it up for everyone" approach.
I'd say "wait and see". At least it'll expose all the journalists that have no idea what researching for an article means :-)
Insert
Attached pdf with error http://www.microsoft.com/tag/content/what/ http://www.michieli.org/download/0074MicrosoftTagTranform.pdf 0074
..they've come up with nothing...
The QR Code, and associated recognition s/ware has been around for -years-. There are many other similar efforts too, that have seen use on ambient posters, billboards, magazines etc etc.
All of these will continue to suffer from the same problem, ubiquity and knowledge of the recognition software... I don't see MS, even with its marketing weight and mind-share being able to break through that problem.
Besides, with the ubiquity of higher speed connectivity on mobile devices growing, an online service to decode all these tag variants (and indeed image simple recognition that doesn't require a tag at all) for you seems more likely a useful endevour.
So, not only are they compiling stats about the destination site, they're doing it for the "clicker." The only reason to do this is so they can cram targeted advertising at you (the clicker.) You can call it a "personalized experience" if it makes you feel better, but it's still unsolicited advertising being thrust upon you. Again, no thanks. The last thing I would want is a third party (Microsoft) pissing-off my customers. They would associate that with me. I don't benefit from this relationship. Why would I put my customers at risk without any reward?
So I downloaded the app, and well, you're just wrong. There is no registration. The application works out of the box. My phone did ask me (and I permitted it) if the app could use my current location, but that's hardly "personal information" by any reasonable standard (and I could have said no). What other info is it going to send? My IP address? That's useless, a phone changes IPs constantly. Unless they have some deal with AT&T to match current DHCP settings at any given moment with IP addresses? And every other carrier? And all the Wifi hot-spots I might use? I suppose it could get my phone number out of the phones internal database (although I'm not sure that info is available to applications), but that's not really a all that useful as an identifier...
I think you're being paranoid, and I also think that this could be anything related to Microsoft and you wouldn't like it. Which is fine... but making stuff up because you assume they want to steal all of your personal data isn't helpful to your cause.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Huh? It's not like I'm making unfounded accusations here. I quoted Microsoft's policy, and provided linkage back to the source so you can read it yourself in-context. They come right out and say that they're going to data-mine your personal information. That's a quote, not anti-Microsoft sentiment.
One of the ways to download the phone application is to enter your phone number, and they'll send you a link on the mobile device. Once you provide your phone number, they can reverse lookup your name, address, and anything else associated with you.
And this is hardly paranoia. Your local grocery stores do the same thing. They correlate credit cards with customer discount and gift cards. They cross-link that information with other companies' databases. This has been going on for years. Here, read this 2005 paper from Carnegie Mellon University [warning PDF]. Pay special attention to Section 3 - Tracking and Price Discrimination.
Actually there is a browser to launch -- it's just the tag decoder app instead of Safari/Opera/whatever. Or a button to press. If not, that is if it reads any tag it sees in its visual field, then it's meatspace spam fodder. Or not just meatspace....I could mail you a JPEG with the image in it and boom.
Just the usual hype-o-rama.
Sounds like what Aarhus University's Innovation Lab has had working for years (without calling it their own idea) - a 2D bar code reader for mobile phones, which they, btw., showed to the public at our annual city festival a few years back, where you could scan such codes and get information on parts of a tour that were made out of those...
The ones I saw here were visually similar to QR Code, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode#2D_barcodes lists a _lot_ of different 2D codes, and even says that QR Code is the standard for Japanese cell phones.
I do hope they try to patent it somewhere outside of the US ;-)
"The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again."
I see Microsoft has finally reached the 90's and thus "innovated" the defunct cuecat.
What would be cool would be some sort of route planner that caches extra info for you. eg. If you're going on vacation, cache all the QR codes for the airports you're going to. eg2. Going to a convention, cache all the info on the various booths etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Interesting paper, but the study referenced in section 3 is virtually irrelevant to the point you're trying to make. They were studying the effect of charging the "higher paying" customer the higher price, and noted that the customer would defer the purchase if they thought they wouldn't get a good deal. That's true.
But real-world frequent shopper programs reward customers who spend more money, not less. That is the reverse of the situation tested in the study. This strategy succeeds even when all participants have full knowledge of how the system works. The customer who spends more money will realize a "bigger" discount, and will continue to participate even if that discount represents only a tiny fraction of the overall price paid. This can be seen in shopper loyalty cards, frequent flyer mile programs, cash-back rewards on credit cards, mail-in rebates, etc.
The disruptive or anonymizing technologies mentioned in the paper work against receiving a discount. By providing false (or no) information about themselves, they can not receive the personalized message containing the discount, and thus get no benefit. (A shopper loyalty card that automatically gives discounts without an issued coupon, however, is vulnerable to misuse through anonymity. The only way to avoid that is to issue the coupon through an out-of-band channel, such as a mailing, email, or SMS, that proves the function of a method of marketing to the customer.)
These systems are extremely popular because they produce proven, measurable increases in sales and profit. Targeted advertising, coupons, loyalty programs, discriminatory pricing, all have been shown to increase traffic and revenue. They've also identified the price people are willing to pay in exchange for an effective marketing channel.
John
1. Price comparison - Aim this at the barcode in store, and have it search Newegg/Amazon/whatever immediately for comparable prices.
2. Preview content - play clips from songs while you look at CDs or display a trailer for a movie
3. Magazines - aim at the Economist (or Seventeen or whatever) and get links to similar online content
4. Compatibility - Point at a wireless network product and see what technology it runs. Point at a motherboard and see if your current hard drive format is supported.
If they open the API, then there will be endless possibilities.
And for your CueCat haters, it didn't work because 1. It wasn't mobile, 2. Hardly anyone supported it and 3. They didn't want anyone using it for what it wasn't "officially" designated. Solve these problems on MS Tag and you'll have an awesome service.
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is a tag that will create an infinite loop in the server farm. Didn't Jordi use that as an unsolvable puzzle to defeat the Borg?
In Japan, QR Codes are not only used to download data (i.e. a link to a web page), but also to upload data. I.e. after playing a video game in an arcade, a QR Code is shown on the screen. Take a picture of it, and your high score will be uploaded to the game provider's server (to have a global high-score table for that game). That's not possible with MS tags, as they are just pointers, never carrying additional information.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
First - at no point did I say anything negative about Google.
OK, make that "at this point I'm simply responding to your increasingly irrelevant attempts to make this about unrelated Google products".