There's also no real good reason for the creation of new formats when existing formats do work well beyond NIH syndrom.
That's not very fair of you.. they didn't work well (scanned eventually, but took effort to find the right angle, distance) on my phone. Perhaps your phone has a better camera. Besides, you could be accused of having the same syndrome, causing you to not give MS tags a fair shake. (I'm not saying that's the case -- merely pointing out how unnecessary that line is).
at this point I'm simply responding to your increasingly hysterical anti-Google flames with "this isn't about Google".
First - at no point did I say anything negative about Google. Go back and read my posts.
Second - you think I'm hysterical? Let me quote you again:
- "Where's the beef... I mean patent? Oh, look..."
- "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."
- "I don't need to get to Microsoft to call a phone number encoded in a 2d barcode. I don't need Microsoft to be accessible to use someone else's site. And don't tell me "Microsoft won't be down" for something that's peripheral to their business after last Friday's debacle."
Oh well, at least you've admitted you don't know jack about the actual topic. I guess that's about as much intellectual honesty as I can expect from you.
Sure, here are a couple of problematic examples:
http://mobile-tagging.blogspot.com/2008/11/code-entdeckt-7-firmendbde.html
http://mobile-tagging.blogspot.com/2008/10/qr-code-webimage-analyse.html
This one goes to my point about how big they have to get to be scanned reliably as the data on them increases. Any tag would get bigger in that sort of application (public billboard type of thing), but some tags will have to expand more than others -- QR codes being one of them:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ytpyXKt50yY/SNi5ZMDvawI/AAAAAAAAAJw/QHLT02DGGKQ/s1600-h/169589.jpg
I've seen a few QR codes in a fashion campaign once that were just impossible to scan, no matter what I did. Couldn't find the images online though.
And again, URLs encoded in QR Codes still handle the case where there is a large amount of data.
Agreed. You need to watch the length of the URL though. Once you need to fall back on TinyURL you might as well do exactly what MS tags does.
Being artificially limited to one vendor is more or less the definition of vendor lock-in.
Right -- but you're not limited to one vendor. There's no reason we can't have QR codes, Datamatrix codes, MS Tags, and more co-existing peacefully. There's no reason scanning apps can't recognize multiple tag formats and know what to do with them. Most already recognize all key formats, and will probably add MS tags if they catch on. MS's own apps only recognize MS tags right now, but they've stated that they're adding formats..
I don't know why they did not take a normal QR and print it a lot larger. What I meant by "honesty" is that the only explanation I can think of is that there is a printing resolution limit (probably due to color printing alignment issues). They don't mention this limit but don't want to lie in their example, so to make the QR bigger they made it have a lot more data than necessary.
Ok, I understand what you mean about bigger -- but honestly, I've seen lots of QR codes that size -- they're typically the ones that don't scan. Not printing it a lot larger, is sort of exactly the point -- small QR codes are difficult to scan reliably. MS tags do a better job in that area.
The biggest dishonesty is they they are comparing a very long URL with a Microsoft number being looked up on their servers.
I think you're mistaking the redirecting service for the data encoded in the tag...
I don't know what you are talking about, and you seem to be ignoring my TinyURL example. TinyURL is a "redirecting service" that can be used by QR codes. The Microsoft one says "123456" and you store the actual link on Microsoft's servers. A TinyURL QR would say "http://tinyurl.com/123456" and you store the actual link on TinyURL's servers. The TinyURL is 19 bytes larger, but you are not locked into using TinyURL!
I meant to say that the URL encoded into the tag was merely http://www.microsoft.com/tag/. As you said, the MS tag just stored an ID. The ID was looked up against a webservice, which redirected you to http://www.microsoft.com/tag/ -- I thought that maybe you mistook the URL of the webservice (plus the ID etc.) -- all visible in the browser address bar, as the URL encoded into the tag.
Having said that, I do agree that the QR code is way more complex than what I'd expect for a URL that size. I didn't mean to ignore your TinyURL example -- but it's not exactly good design to have to rely on TinyURL -- I mean, if you have to do that, why not just do exactly what MS tags does in the first place?
Me: "EVEN GOOGLE doesn't require you to go back to the servers to read 2d barcodes.
Google has no part in the design or implementation of QR codes -- don't know how many more ways to tell you this. A more accurate statement is that QR codes don't have to be resolved against a server. Google never had to decide to require you, or not require you to do anything. When are you going to get that?
You: "but google is evil"
Not at all. It's just an easy example. I could use Yahoo, Ask.com, Live.com, any search or web mail provider, and more.
I'm sorry, I can't type any slower than this.
You think pretty slowly. Look - at this point in the conversation, it's pretty obvious that you've not even tried the tag scanning app. It's also obvious that you've never used a QR code either. If you had, by now, you would have at least pointed out some scenarios that QR codes enable but MS tags don't. There are scenarios like that -- but in 10+ posts you didn't mention even one because don't know about them. What are you even doing in this thread if you have no knowledge about what we're discussing?
ps: don't bother googling for those scenarios -- your credibility is already shot..
THE GOOGLE PRODUCT THAT IS COMPARABLE TO THIS PARTICULAR MICROSOFT PRODUCT DOESN'T HAVE THIS CHARACTERISTIC.
That's not slower - that's louder.
QR Codes are not a Google product.
QR Codes have drawbacks due to not having this characteristic. (When there's too much data in it, reading it is unreliable)
Therefore, there's a purpose to MS Tags having this characteristic.
In other scenarios (image search, web search, many more) this characterstic is widely accepted
Simple point - yet you keep getting your panties in a bunch over this 'characteristic'.
So why aren't you discussing it instead of drawing attention to my objections by engaging in a long and pointless thread where you deliberately misinterpret everything I post?
Any chance of a discussion got ruined by posts like yours. I didn't misinterpret anything -- I tried to lay the logic above in the simplest terms, yet you refuse to see it.
I'm not publishing (printing on product boxes, or whatever) information that depends on Google Search behaving in any particular way, nor do customers go through Google Search as an essential step to look up the data that I am publishing.
Try this:
1. Do an image search in Google.
2. Open any result.
3. Observe how it opens in a frame.
The result is that Google knows exactly which result you looked up. It is not essential for Google to know that -- yet they have designed their image search to work that way.
MS's reliance on their service isn't out of their desire to make you go through their service. To achieve better image recognition they had to reduce the data on the tag. This was the solution.
You keep bringing up problems as if I'm saying "Google is good, Microsoft is bad". I'm not. I'm saying "Microsoft's product has these characteristics, other products (EVEN INCLUDING GOOGLE, WHO IS NOTORIOUS FOR DATA MINING) don't have these characteristics."
1. Google products don't have these characteristics? Read what I've written about image search above.
2. You are not claiming that MS is bad? Let me quote your original post:
- "Where's the beef... I mean patent? Oh, look..." - "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." - "I don't need to get to Microsoft to call a phone number encoded in a 2d barcode. I don't need Microsoft to be accessible to use someone else's site. And don't tell me "Microsoft won't be down" for something that's peripheral to their business after last Friday's debacle."
Google isn't the only player in the 2d barcode scanner game, friend.
Google are not a player in the 2d barcode scanner, my friend. There is a barcode scanner available for their phone - that's all. There are a multitude of QR/Datamatrix/more scanner apps for just about every type of phone out there. MS's own scanning apps (the ones this article talked about) currently only scan MS Tags, but will expand to scan QRs, Datamatrix and possibly more (they have stated that more formats are coming, but not called out which formats. My assumption is that QRs and Datamatrix are the most obvious additions). In any event, there are several QR scanning apps for windows mobile already.
Indeed. So why do you keep coming up with red herrings when I thereby give the reasons I don't think it's a good idea to use it?
I submitted this story in the hope of discussing cool applications of such technology. Any hope I had of that sort of discussion got drowned out by people like you who are more interested in pushing an "MS is evil" agenda. I understand this is a public forum and I'm not in control of the direction the conversation takes -- but anybody reading this thread is bound to come away with the impression that MS tag is evil, spyware, god alone knows what, and has no purpose even existing. If you post nonsense like that, don't expect that somebody will not call you out. If you use/do-not use the app -- nobody can force you otherwise. If you had posted some valid, insightful objections/disadvantages/technical limitations, I would have enjoyed discussing them with you. What you posted, my friend, was garbage. Worse - it was redundant, sarcastic garbage. I merely called you out.
Commercial interference from and dependence on Microsoft's servers.
You have exactly the same 'commercial interference from and dependence on' Google when you use their search engine. Surely you still use Google search?
I've been clotheslined by too many big companies to want to depend on ANY of them keeping a "free, commercial" online service up without using it for commercial advantage. Which is, of course, their right.
At least they have made a full disclosure that it's free for now, they might start charging in the future, and if/when they do any tags created before that will continue to work for two years. You have all the information you need to make a fully informed decision whether to use the service or not. Even if you chose not to use the service as an advertiser you have nothing to lose by using it as a consumer (i.e. scanning tags, not creating them). Nobody can or will force you to use it of course.
So? That's because there's a practical need in order to get the traffic where it's going. That doesn't mean Microsoft has any reason to know where you go as well.
The practical need, in this case, is the requirement to resolve the tag with it's data -- simple. MS isn't keeping a file on you. Relax. This is still no different than a search engine gathering data to use for analytics for their Ad engine.
I fail to see what this model offers over QR Codes as used in Japan. QR Codes can contain a fair amount of data encoded in the barcode itself - enough for small images, or plenty of text.
QR codes do work -- but they have their limitations. I've seen ridiculous number of QR codes that had too much data, were too small to scan properly.
Having lived in Japan for a year, I can tell you that reading QR Codes on a cellphone is even simpler than point-and-click. You just point, and before you would have even pressed the button to tell it to read, it's already recognized the barcode and read the data. Works perfectly in all sorts of lighting conditions.
Scanning works the same in both cases. The difference is that QR codes don't work as often as you claim. You have to be very careful when creating a QR code so as to not put too much data into it.
My issue with it is the reinventing the wheel in such a way that you have to go through them. A more versatile version of the wheel already exists and is already an ISO standard. I don't see how this adds any value, but see how it adds a number of limitations for no good technical reason.
I guess that's a difference of opinion then. The Microsoft Tag wheel is superior to the QR code wheel IMHO simply because scanning the tag is so much more reliable, and everything hinges on that. For the hundreds of examples of easy to scan QR codes you can give me, I can give you hundreds of examples of QR codes that won't scan.
In any case it's probably a moot point. You already get scanning apps for phones that can decode multiple tag formats. I can easily see them just adding a new format to the list of things they recognize. All the "lock-in" related objections are just typical slashdot noise. There's no reason the world can't accommodate another tag format. There's no lock-in just because tag data gets resolved through MS's service. If QR codes are as good as you claim they are, I don't see how MS is going to arm-twist everyone in the world to use their tags, and charge exorbitant rates, and violate your privacy etc.
What the hell does "Google's Web Ad Service" have to do with anything?
I'm talking about comparing Microsoft's proposed mechanism for providing machine-readable tags on physical objects with Google's proposed mechanism for providing machine readable tags on physical objects. Google has other products and services, sure, but this is the one that is similar to the one under discussion.
You said you had privacy concerns because of data passing through Microsoft's tag service. I showed you examples of more invasive services that you use every day without any issues. If you have no problem with Google's web ad service you have no grounds to have a problem with Microsoft's tag service. After that, the fact that QR scanning doesn't require a back end service is merely a technology difference -- not a privacy issue.
I've already pointed out that I'm talking about the data you make available to Google or Microsoft when you publish a tag (print it on a piece of paper or package). If you can't read, that's not my problem.
I know exactly what you're pointing out. However, the matter is simply broader than how you are trying to define it. Your privacy is at grave risk from web searching, ad clicks, image and video searches and clicking on results, sending email, browsing websites. The data from scanning tags doesn't even begin to compare to these things I've pointed out. So even though you only want to only compare tagging technologies, the matter is just not that simple.
So to cut a long story short:
- MS tags yield vastly better results for pattern recognition. In this way they are superior to QR codes.
- Your privacy objections make no sense considering your use of the other services I pointed out.
I hope you get it now.
Just re-read your post and I think you're making a few mistakes.
Actually the data is 8x as dense in that example, whoever wrote the page is not doing their geometry right... Plus in the above comparison they ignored the white line which is another pixel of height.
For the scale of the drawing, the data is merely 4x density in the MS Tag. Each triangle takes half the area of each square at that scale. To give you the final picture - cut off the right half of the right-most triangle and move it across all the way to the left. Fit it into the white space like a puzzle piece. You'll see that 1-byte of data will take 2 squares in the MS Tag, where 1-byte of data took 8 squares in the QR code. 2 squares : 8 squares = 4x data density. btw: it's important to note that the scale used in this drawing is not what's necessarily used in practice. Also, note the slim white line at the top and bottom of the triangles -- they have indeed allowed for the white line.
However their second example comparing the actual QR code to their code, for some reason (probably honesty) prints the QR code so small that each Microsoft triangle is approximately the size of a 3x3 rectangle of QR code.
This is realistic. Remember what I said above about the first drawing not being done to scale. I'll come back to it again.
Also the QR code example is 4x the size of any real ones I ever saw printed in a paper.
That's okay -- the bigger the better. Makes it easier on the camera. You can scan it better from a distance as well. Imagine how big the code would have to be if you needed to scan it from a Billboard. All you have to do is move your camera back a bit.
The biggest dishonesty is they they are comparing a very long URL with a Microsoft number being looked up on their servers.
I think you're mistaking the redirecting service for the data encoded in the tag -- it isn't. The tag just contains an id that's being handed to it. The service sees that and knows that it has to go to http://www.microsoft.com/tag/. For the QR and Datamatrix codes this step isn't needed -- they should be configured to go to http://www.microsoft.com/tag/ directly.
I do think it is somewhat dishonest to try to claim that their color is what makes it so tiny, when in fact it is that it is storing very little data.
Actually, they are claiming exactly what you said -- that they have to store very little data in their tag. That's why they're able to make it so small. That's also one of the reasons pattern recognition works so much better for them.
Also artificially inflating the size of the QR code is not very honest as well.
Size makes it easier for the camera to get a good image, to resolve the black and white squares easily, etc.
keeping your information on Microsoft's servers in order to use this does not sound really like something everybody will want.
There is probably other data (MIME type, container format) that goes into the QR and Datamatrix codes to tell the scanning app that what they are scanning is an HTTP URL. The QR code for a TinyURL link will probably not be very different.
When I publish a tag that someone's going to read using Google's tag reader...
When you publish a tag using MS's service, the data you provide (as the advertiser) is the same that you would provide to Google, when you (as the advertiser) publish ads on the web, thorough Google's web ad service. Not their tagging service -- their web advertising service. The one that relies on AdWords and AdSense. In both cases, you are the advertiser. In both cases, you provide data to a service. In both cases, user's traffic comes to your site through that service. In both cases, that service has the opportunity to log whatever it wants to before redirecting the user to you. One service happens to be a tag reader and the other serves web ads -- but in the context of your privacy concerns they are completely identical.
Millions of people respond to spammers as well. Why do I have to jump over the cliff too?
There's no cliff for you to jump off, in this case.
Yep, and I keep that in mind when I send mail.
So the content in the mail you send, however careful you may be -- that's less than the data (ip address, tag-id, response) that MS may be logging when you look up a tag? You still have a logical fallacy here -- you are showing blind faith in every host you send email to, and zero in MS in spite of the fact that your exposure is greater in the email case.
Read the terms of service and privacy policy
Are you kidding me? You've been ranting about MS's service with barely a coherent thought. Which service do you think I'm asking you to look up the ToS and privacy policy for?
I'm talking about the data you give to MS when you publish a tag. That's data you don't have to give to Google unless you choose to use Google advertising services.
When you publish the tag, the data you give to MS -- that is exactly the same as the data you give to Google if you advertise through them. You are the advertiser in both cases.
I run my own mailserver, which I access using SSL and SSH.
Doesn't negate the fact that 100s of millions of people use web mail, so they exercise much more trust in an entity than this tagging scheme requires. Btw -- where do you think the emails you send to people get stored? In their mail servers! Any email you receive is 'sent mail' on someone else's server. Slice and dice it any way you wish -- you are much more trusting than you think, and you know less about security than you think.
You mean "over giving a company that's documented in court-case after court-case as using anything they can get hold of for anti-competitive activity a list of all your customers"?
Read the terms of service and privacy policy before making silly claims about "lists of all your customers". I'll leave that as an exercise for you.
So the reason I think that you do need a central service: In the tags, I've counted 12 triangles in each row, and 5 rows of triangles. Each triangle can have 1 of 4 colors - so it represents a 2 bit value. So we've got 12*2*5/8 = 15 bytes of data on a tag.
i.e. to get the awesome results they are getting (w.r.t. pattern recognition), MS had to reduce the data in the tag to a paltry 15 bytes. Some of that might even be checksum data. Once you're down to 15 bytes, I don't think it's practical to encode a URL or even a MIME type into the tag. All you have place for is a unique identifier -- and your scanning application will need to know the details of which service to talk to.
Having said that, I don't really know if the tags I've seen so far are indicative of the maximum amount of data that can be encoded into an MS Tag. But I suspect that is indeed the case -- after all, if they expand the tag to get more data into it, they start compromising on the scanning results again.
You might note that I, in fact, suggested the pay-to-park scheme, and the subway ticket scheme. It's actually quite simple a concept; you scan the 'meter', and that tells your device to connect with the metering company, give it the meter data and your car data, which of course is connected to some account or bill. Perhaps more easily, your car could have a tag on it that the meter reads
Acknowledged! Thanks for the comments, and the cool ideas. I was blowing steam in general, and it happened to get out in my reply to you -- my aplogies.
Google's version of this encodes the URL directly in the tag. Google doesn't have any control over the content of the tag.
Google's scanner uses QR codes -- we've already covered their limitations -- you put the content in the tag, but it's at the cost of reliable results for pattern recognition. I don't know if you've ever used these apps -- trust me the difference between scanning a QR code and a Microsoft tag is the difference between earth and heaven. One works, sorta/kinda and the other one works instantly/brilliantly.
Now to make the scanning work as reliably as they did, they had to get the data out of the tag. Hence the web service.
And finally, to address your privacy concerns about the web service -- the data you are sending to MS when looking up a tag -- compare that to the data you give google when you use their search engine, or the data you give any webmail provider when you use webmail, or quite simply the faith you place in your ISP considering all your non-SSL traffice passes through their servers, in the clear. That is why I mentioned AdSense (and AdWords, and PageRank). How do you think Google improves it's search relevencies? By mining the data they get from us. How are you able to place so much trust in these entities that store your personal email, know what you search for, know every site you ever visit, but get all up in arms over sending a tag number, ipaddress to MS, and receiving some data back?
Colour would provide for greater information density, but if you were in certain environments where the ambient light was not white there could be issues unless complementary colours were used
According to a bit of a bit of tinkering around, the data is stored in the brightness (4 levels - so 2 bits per triangle) rather than the color. The color helps cellphone cameras callibrate according to whatever the incident light conditions are. The tags will work in monochrome as well, but you'll get best results with color.
The tradeoff is the limitation in quantity
The tradeoff with QR codes and such is the limitation in quantity. It's also in inferior pattern recognition. The tradeoff with MS Tags is net access.
I can already do paperless boarding at the airport where I live.
My suggestion had nothing to do with boarding. In an airport, you can watch the monitors for flight info, or listen for announcements. If the monitor has a tag next to my flight, I can scan the tag and get up to the minute information on my flight. Now I can go to the lounge, coffee shop, whatever, and rest assured that I'm not going to miss any announcement. In any case it's just an example. You can choose to not see the point if you wish (it seems you've already made that choice).
if you opened your web browser and used a scanner attached to your PC it would take you to our company web page with our profiles.
Your scanner + PC are very heavy and non-portable compared to my cell phone. I'll take this solution any day.
why bother with a piece of paper when you can beam v-card data between cellphones directly
You can't beam stuff to an iPhone (for example). Does beaming work across OSes (like winmo to blackberry) -- I don't know. The iphone is a valid scenario too -- people exchange numbers outside of work as well. In any case, I repeat, this was just an example. You don't even have to print the tag on your card. You could simply carry an image of it on your phone. Someone else pointed out another cool app -- tagging exhibits in museums and stuff so you can get more information on them than what can be physically displayed.
None of this requires a new encoding format nor does it require a closed single-vendor service to accompany it.
Yes -- the existing formats were inadequate. Either they suffered from poor patter recognition results, or they failed entirely in poor ambient conditions, or they had practical limits to the amount of data they could carry. MS tags get beyond this, but require a net connection. Your paranoia about a single-vendor service is also misplaced. Privacy concerns are always valid for services of this nature. But in terms of you as a consumer trusting the provider -- you already place much greater trust in single entities -- think search engines, webmail, etc.
On the other hand, if I go to Delta's website to see my flight information, only Delta really knows I did so
Actually your gateway and every hop along the way knows you were on Delta's site. If your traffic wasn't SSL-encrypted, they have the ability to even reconstruct the pages as you saw them. Somebody on your LAN with a packet sniffer could also do that. Your ISP essentially knows just about everything you do.
On the other hand, I don't think that it needs to be a monetized service.
A lot of people on this thread have expressed very sharp/derogatory comments about this aspect, and it really confounds me. How is it any differen than a search engine? Google isn't free -- they make their money through ads. i.e. somebody pays them money for providing the search service. Same as any other search engine. When you search for something on google, they know what you searched for, and they have so much information about the results/ads you clicked on. The data from that is mined to improve the targeting of their ads and their relevency rankings (AdSense, AdWords, PageRank). Google is the best search engine in the world because they continuously do the best job of mining this data and translating it into algorightms that improve their relevency. Nobody can do stuff for free -- even the FOSS folks need to make money from support, or dontions if nothing else. There's no technological reason the service can't be free, but MS did the work to develop this solution -- which executive in their right mind would say "you know what guys -- let's operate this thing at a loss -- I don't think we should make money off it".
I can't think of a reason that a protocol couldn't be developed that scanning apps would implement
I can't either. But who will operate the service for free? Even a consortium would have to make money in some way to keep the service up. Or if the government runs it, then the tax payers pay for it. In the current model, the guys that showed initiative (by creating the service and the apps) reap the reward (profit), the businesses/individuals who can gain from the service will pay for it directly, and eventually consumers will pay for it (indirectly) in the cost of goods (same as any other form of advertising). The enterpreneur made money, business got done, consumers got a service. That's as it should be. If consumers don't use the service, businesses won't see the value, and MS won't get paid. That's also as it should be.
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?
They appear to have solved a problem that nobody seems to have solved adequately so far. All existing solutions either fail to associate rich content with the tag, or score poorly on the pattern recognition front, and fail miserably in adverse conditions. This solution still has the drawback of requiring net access -- but if you have that, it's the best solution by far. So Microsoft's role has been to do the research into creating the tag format, developing and testing the scanning apps, getting OEMs and partners to adopt the technology, providing the service. They have not done this out of the goodness of their heart -- they're in the technology business, and they see this as a business opportunity. It's not a false market or a real market or anything in between. MS wants your business, and they're working to earn it -- same as any other business.
I apologise if I sound bitter in this reponse. I really got excited about the possibilites when I saw this app, that's why I submitted the story to slashdot. I had asked a question in the submission about adoption of this tech., and possible uses -- because I saw a lot of promise in it. I mentioned a couple of uses such as printing a tag on your business card that work contacts can just
Slashdot Mirror
There's also no real good reason for the creation of new formats when existing formats do work well beyond NIH syndrom.
That's not very fair of you.. they didn't work well (scanned eventually, but took effort to find the right angle, distance) on my phone. Perhaps your phone has a better camera. Besides, you could be accused of having the same syndrome, causing you to not give MS tags a fair shake. (I'm not saying that's the case -- merely pointing out how unnecessary that line is).
I repeat: I said nothing negative about Google. It was merely one of many examples.
I also repeat: since you've admitted you don't know jack about the topic at hand, I don't care what you say now.
at this point I'm simply responding to your increasingly hysterical anti-Google flames with "this isn't about Google".
First - at no point did I say anything negative about Google. Go back and read my posts.
Second - you think I'm hysterical? Let me quote you again:
- "Where's the beef... I mean patent? Oh, look..."
- "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."
- "I don't need to get to Microsoft to call a phone number encoded in a 2d barcode. I don't need Microsoft to be accessible to use someone else's site. And don't tell me "Microsoft won't be down" for something that's peripheral to their business after last Friday's debacle."
Oh well, at least you've admitted you don't know jack about the actual topic. I guess that's about as much intellectual honesty as I can expect from you.
http://mobile-tagging.blogspot.com/2008/11/code-entdeckt-7-firmendbde.html
http://mobile-tagging.blogspot.com/2008/10/qr-code-webimage-analyse.html
This one goes to my point about how big they have to get to be scanned reliably as the data on them increases. Any tag would get bigger in that sort of application (public billboard type of thing), but some tags will have to expand more than others -- QR codes being one of them:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ytpyXKt50yY/SNi5ZMDvawI/AAAAAAAAAJw/QHLT02DGGKQ/s1600-h/169589.jpg
I've seen a few QR codes in a fashion campaign once that were just impossible to scan, no matter what I did. Couldn't find the images online though.
And again, URLs encoded in QR Codes still handle the case where there is a large amount of data.
Agreed. You need to watch the length of the URL though. Once you need to fall back on TinyURL you might as well do exactly what MS tags does.
Being artificially limited to one vendor is more or less the definition of vendor lock-in.
Right -- but you're not limited to one vendor. There's no reason we can't have QR codes, Datamatrix codes, MS Tags, and more co-existing peacefully. There's no reason scanning apps can't recognize multiple tag formats and know what to do with them. Most already recognize all key formats, and will probably add MS tags if they catch on. MS's own apps only recognize MS tags right now, but they've stated that they're adding formats..
I don't know why they did not take a normal QR and print it a lot larger. What I meant by "honesty" is that the only explanation I can think of is that there is a printing resolution limit (probably due to color printing alignment issues). They don't mention this limit but don't want to lie in their example, so to make the QR bigger they made it have a lot more data than necessary.
Ok, I understand what you mean about bigger -- but honestly, I've seen lots of QR codes that size -- they're typically the ones that don't scan. Not printing it a lot larger, is sort of exactly the point -- small QR codes are difficult to scan reliably. MS tags do a better job in that area.
The biggest dishonesty is they they are comparing a very long URL with a Microsoft number being looked up on their servers.
I think you're mistaking the redirecting service for the data encoded in the tag...
I don't know what you are talking about, and you seem to be ignoring my TinyURL example. TinyURL is a "redirecting service" that can be used by QR codes. The Microsoft one says "123456" and you store the actual link on Microsoft's servers. A TinyURL QR would say "http://tinyurl.com/123456" and you store the actual link on TinyURL's servers. The TinyURL is 19 bytes larger, but you are not locked into using TinyURL!
I meant to say that the URL encoded into the tag was merely http://www.microsoft.com/tag/. As you said, the MS tag just stored an ID. The ID was looked up against a webservice, which redirected you to http://www.microsoft.com/tag/ -- I thought that maybe you mistook the URL of the webservice (plus the ID etc.) -- all visible in the browser address bar, as the URL encoded into the tag.
Having said that, I do agree that the QR code is way more complex than what I'd expect for a URL that size. I didn't mean to ignore your TinyURL example -- but it's not exactly good design to have to rely on TinyURL -- I mean, if you have to do that, why not just do exactly what MS tags does in the first place?
Me: "EVEN GOOGLE doesn't require you to go back to the servers to read 2d barcodes.
Google has no part in the design or implementation of QR codes -- don't know how many more ways to tell you this. A more accurate statement is that QR codes don't have to be resolved against a server. Google never had to decide to require you, or not require you to do anything. When are you going to get that?
You: "but google is evil"
Not at all. It's just an easy example. I could use Yahoo, Ask.com, Live.com, any search or web mail provider, and more.
I'm sorry, I can't type any slower than this.
You think pretty slowly. Look - at this point in the conversation, it's pretty obvious that you've not even tried the tag scanning app. It's also obvious that you've never used a QR code either. If you had, by now, you would have at least pointed out some scenarios that QR codes enable but MS tags don't. There are scenarios like that -- but in 10+ posts you didn't mention even one because don't know about them. What are you even doing in this thread if you have no knowledge about what we're discussing?
ps: don't bother googling for those scenarios -- your credibility is already shot..
THE GOOGLE PRODUCT THAT IS COMPARABLE TO THIS PARTICULAR MICROSOFT PRODUCT DOESN'T HAVE THIS CHARACTERISTIC.
That's not slower - that's louder.
QR Codes are not a Google product.
QR Codes have drawbacks due to not having this characteristic. (When there's too much data in it, reading it is unreliable)
Therefore, there's a purpose to MS Tags having this characteristic.
In other scenarios (image search, web search, many more) this characterstic is widely accepted
Simple point - yet you keep getting your panties in a bunch over this 'characteristic'.
So why aren't you discussing it instead of drawing attention to my objections by engaging in a long and pointless thread where you deliberately misinterpret everything I post?
Any chance of a discussion got ruined by posts like yours. I didn't misinterpret anything -- I tried to lay the logic above in the simplest terms, yet you refuse to see it.
I'm not publishing (printing on product boxes, or whatever) information that depends on Google Search behaving in any particular way, nor do customers go through Google Search as an essential step to look up the data that I am publishing.
Try this:
1. Do an image search in Google.
2. Open any result.
3. Observe how it opens in a frame.
The result is that Google knows exactly which result you looked up. It is not essential for Google to know that -- yet they have designed their image search to work that way.
MS's reliance on their service isn't out of their desire to make you go through their service. To achieve better image recognition they had to reduce the data on the tag. This was the solution.
You keep bringing up problems as if I'm saying "Google is good, Microsoft is bad". I'm not. I'm saying "Microsoft's product has these characteristics, other products (EVEN INCLUDING GOOGLE, WHO IS NOTORIOUS FOR DATA MINING) don't have these characteristics."
1. Google products don't have these characteristics? Read what I've written about image search above.
2. You are not claiming that MS is bad? Let me quote your original post:
- "Where's the beef... I mean patent? Oh, look..."
- "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."
- "I don't need to get to Microsoft to call a phone number encoded in a 2d barcode. I don't need Microsoft to be accessible to use someone else's site. And don't tell me "Microsoft won't be down" for something that's peripheral to their business after last Friday's debacle."
Google isn't the only player in the 2d barcode scanner game, friend.
Google are not a player in the 2d barcode scanner, my friend. There is a barcode scanner available for their phone - that's all. There are a multitude of QR/Datamatrix/more scanner apps for just about every type of phone out there. MS's own scanning apps (the ones this article talked about) currently only scan MS Tags, but will expand to scan QRs, Datamatrix and possibly more (they have stated that more formats are coming, but not called out which formats. My assumption is that QRs and Datamatrix are the most obvious additions). In any event, there are several QR scanning apps for windows mobile already.
Indeed. So why do you keep coming up with red herrings when I thereby give the reasons I don't think it's a good idea to use it?
I submitted this story in the hope of discussing cool applications of such technology. Any hope I had of that sort of discussion got drowned out by people like you who are more interested in pushing an "MS is evil" agenda. I understand this is a public forum and I'm not in control of the direction the conversation takes -- but anybody reading this thread is bound to come away with the impression that MS tag is evil, spyware, god alone knows what, and has no purpose even existing. If you post nonsense like that, don't expect that somebody will not call you out. If you use/do-not use the app -- nobody can force you otherwise. If you had posted some valid, insightful objections/disadvantages/technical limitations, I would have enjoyed discussing them with you. What you posted, my friend, was garbage. Worse - it was redundant, sarcastic garbage. I merely called you out.
Commercial interference from and dependence on Microsoft's servers.
You have exactly the same 'commercial interference from and dependence on' Google when you use their search engine. Surely you still use Google search?
I've been clotheslined by too many big companies to want to depend on ANY of them keeping a "free, commercial" online service up without using it for commercial advantage. Which is, of course, their right.
At least they have made a full disclosure that it's free for now, they might start charging in the future, and if/when they do any tags created before that will continue to work for two years. You have all the information you need to make a fully informed decision whether to use the service or not. Even if you chose not to use the service as an advertiser you have nothing to lose by using it as a consumer (i.e. scanning tags, not creating them). Nobody can or will force you to use it of course.
Excellent point!
he believes that the 17-year-old defendant "had no idea at the time he hatched this plot that if he killed his parents, they would be dead forever."
If someone as old as 17 doesn't understand this basic fact of life, then there's obviously something wrong that has nothing to do with the video game.
Clearly Halo 3 is at fault. If they had some non-respawning game types this would never have happened...
So? That's because there's a practical need in order to get the traffic where it's going. That doesn't mean Microsoft has any reason to know where you go as well.
The practical need, in this case, is the requirement to resolve the tag with it's data -- simple. MS isn't keeping a file on you. Relax. This is still no different than a search engine gathering data to use for analytics for their Ad engine.
I fail to see what this model offers over QR Codes as used in Japan. QR Codes can contain a fair amount of data encoded in the barcode itself - enough for small images, or plenty of text.
QR codes do work -- but they have their limitations. I've seen ridiculous number of QR codes that had too much data, were too small to scan properly.
Having lived in Japan for a year, I can tell you that reading QR Codes on a cellphone is even simpler than point-and-click. You just point, and before you would have even pressed the button to tell it to read, it's already recognized the barcode and read the data. Works perfectly in all sorts of lighting conditions.
Scanning works the same in both cases. The difference is that QR codes don't work as often as you claim. You have to be very careful when creating a QR code so as to not put too much data into it.
My issue with it is the reinventing the wheel in such a way that you have to go through them. A more versatile version of the wheel already exists and is already an ISO standard. I don't see how this adds any value, but see how it adds a number of limitations for no good technical reason.
I guess that's a difference of opinion then. The Microsoft Tag wheel is superior to the QR code wheel IMHO simply because scanning the tag is so much more reliable, and everything hinges on that. For the hundreds of examples of easy to scan QR codes you can give me, I can give you hundreds of examples of QR codes that won't scan.
In any case it's probably a moot point. You already get scanning apps for phones that can decode multiple tag formats. I can easily see them just adding a new format to the list of things they recognize. All the "lock-in" related objections are just typical slashdot noise. There's no reason the world can't accommodate another tag format. There's no lock-in just because tag data gets resolved through MS's service. If QR codes are as good as you claim they are, I don't see how MS is going to arm-twist everyone in the world to use their tags, and charge exorbitant rates, and violate your privacy etc.
You said you had privacy concerns because of data passing through Microsoft's tag service.
No, I didn't actually say that.
Great - so what's the problem?
Precisely!!
What the hell does "Google's Web Ad Service" have to do with anything? I'm talking about comparing Microsoft's proposed mechanism for providing machine-readable tags on physical objects with Google's proposed mechanism for providing machine readable tags on physical objects. Google has other products and services, sure, but this is the one that is similar to the one under discussion.
You said you had privacy concerns because of data passing through Microsoft's tag service. I showed you examples of more invasive services that you use every day without any issues. If you have no problem with Google's web ad service you have no grounds to have a problem with Microsoft's tag service. After that, the fact that QR scanning doesn't require a back end service is merely a technology difference -- not a privacy issue.
I've already pointed out that I'm talking about the data you make available to Google or Microsoft when you publish a tag (print it on a piece of paper or package). If you can't read, that's not my problem.
I know exactly what you're pointing out. However, the matter is simply broader than how you are trying to define it. Your privacy is at grave risk from web searching, ad clicks, image and video searches and clicking on results, sending email, browsing websites. The data from scanning tags doesn't even begin to compare to these things I've pointed out. So even though you only want to only compare tagging technologies, the matter is just not that simple.
So to cut a long story short:
- MS tags yield vastly better results for pattern recognition. In this way they are superior to QR codes.
- Your privacy objections make no sense considering your use of the other services I pointed out. I hope you get it now.
Actually the data is 8x as dense in that example, whoever wrote the page is not doing their geometry right... Plus in the above comparison they ignored the white line which is another pixel of height.
For the scale of the drawing, the data is merely 4x density in the MS Tag. Each triangle takes half the area of each square at that scale. To give you the final picture - cut off the right half of the right-most triangle and move it across all the way to the left. Fit it into the white space like a puzzle piece. You'll see that 1-byte of data will take 2 squares in the MS Tag, where 1-byte of data took 8 squares in the QR code. 2 squares : 8 squares = 4x data density. btw: it's important to note that the scale used in this drawing is not what's necessarily used in practice. Also, note the slim white line at the top and bottom of the triangles -- they have indeed allowed for the white line.
However their second example comparing the actual QR code to their code, for some reason (probably honesty) prints the QR code so small that each Microsoft triangle is approximately the size of a 3x3 rectangle of QR code.
This is realistic. Remember what I said above about the first drawing not being done to scale. I'll come back to it again.
Also the QR code example is 4x the size of any real ones I ever saw printed in a paper.
That's okay -- the bigger the better. Makes it easier on the camera. You can scan it better from a distance as well. Imagine how big the code would have to be if you needed to scan it from a Billboard. All you have to do is move your camera back a bit.
The biggest dishonesty is they they are comparing a very long URL with a Microsoft number being looked up on their servers.
I think you're mistaking the redirecting service for the data encoded in the tag -- it isn't. The tag just contains an id that's being handed to it. The service sees that and knows that it has to go to http://www.microsoft.com/tag/. For the QR and Datamatrix codes this step isn't needed -- they should be configured to go to http://www.microsoft.com/tag/ directly.
I do think it is somewhat dishonest to try to claim that their color is what makes it so tiny, when in fact it is that it is storing very little data.
Actually, they are claiming exactly what you said -- that they have to store very little data in their tag. That's why they're able to make it so small. That's also one of the reasons pattern recognition works so much better for them.
Also artificially inflating the size of the QR code is not very honest as well.
Size makes it easier for the camera to get a good image, to resolve the black and white squares easily, etc.
keeping your information on Microsoft's servers in order to use this does not sound really like something everybody will want.
Judging from the responses here, clearly it isnt.
The biggest dishonesty is they they are comparing a very long URL with a Microsoft number being looked up on their servers.
The URL being looked up is simply http://www.microsoft.com/tag/
There is probably other data (MIME type, container format) that goes into the QR and Datamatrix codes to tell the scanning app that what they are scanning is an HTTP URL. The QR code for a TinyURL link will probably not be very different.
When I publish a tag that someone's going to read using Google's tag reader ...
When you publish a tag using MS's service, the data you provide (as the advertiser) is the same that you would provide to Google, when you (as the advertiser) publish ads on the web, thorough Google's web ad service. Not their tagging service -- their web advertising service. The one that relies on AdWords and AdSense. In both cases, you are the advertiser. In both cases, you provide data to a service. In both cases, user's traffic comes to your site through that service. In both cases, that service has the opportunity to log whatever it wants to before redirecting the user to you. One service happens to be a tag reader and the other serves web ads -- but in the context of your privacy concerns they are completely identical.
Millions of people respond to spammers as well. Why do I have to jump over the cliff too?
There's no cliff for you to jump off, in this case.
Yep, and I keep that in mind when I send mail.
So the content in the mail you send, however careful you may be -- that's less than the data (ip address, tag-id, response) that MS may be logging when you look up a tag? You still have a logical fallacy here -- you are showing blind faith in every host you send email to, and zero in MS in spite of the fact that your exposure is greater in the email case.
Read the terms of service and privacy policy
Are you kidding me? You've been ranting about MS's service with barely a coherent thought. Which service do you think I'm asking you to look up the ToS and privacy policy for?
I mostly agree with you except for one thing -- 4 bytes limits the server to an IPv4 address. Might be ok, but makes me pretty squeamish.
I'm talking about the data you give to MS when you publish a tag. That's data you don't have to give to Google unless you choose to use Google advertising services.
When you publish the tag, the data you give to MS -- that is exactly the same as the data you give to Google if you advertise through them. You are the advertiser in both cases.
I run my own mailserver, which I access using SSL and SSH.
Doesn't negate the fact that 100s of millions of people use web mail, so they exercise much more trust in an entity than this tagging scheme requires. Btw -- where do you think the emails you send to people get stored? In their mail servers! Any email you receive is 'sent mail' on someone else's server. Slice and dice it any way you wish -- you are much more trusting than you think, and you know less about security than you think.
You mean "over giving a company that's documented in court-case after court-case as using anything they can get hold of for anti-competitive activity a list of all your customers"?
Read the terms of service and privacy policy before making silly claims about "lists of all your customers". I'll leave that as an exercise for you.
So the reason I think that you do need a central service: In the tags, I've counted 12 triangles in each row, and 5 rows of triangles. Each triangle can have 1 of 4 colors - so it represents a 2 bit value. So we've got 12*2*5/8 = 15 bytes of data on a tag.
i.e. to get the awesome results they are getting (w.r.t. pattern recognition), MS had to reduce the data in the tag to a paltry 15 bytes. Some of that might even be checksum data. Once you're down to 15 bytes, I don't think it's practical to encode a URL or even a MIME type into the tag. All you have place for is a unique identifier -- and your scanning application will need to know the details of which service to talk to.
Having said that, I don't really know if the tags I've seen so far are indicative of the maximum amount of data that can be encoded into an MS Tag. But I suspect that is indeed the case -- after all, if they expand the tag to get more data into it, they start compromising on the scanning results again.
You might note that I, in fact, suggested the pay-to-park scheme, and the subway ticket scheme. It's actually quite simple a concept; you scan the 'meter', and that tells your device to connect with the metering company, give it the meter data and your car data, which of course is connected to some account or bill. Perhaps more easily, your car could have a tag on it that the meter reads
Acknowledged! Thanks for the comments, and the cool ideas. I was blowing steam in general, and it happened to get out in my reply to you -- my aplogies.
Google's version of this encodes the URL directly in the tag. Google doesn't have any control over the content of the tag.
Google's scanner uses QR codes -- we've already covered their limitations -- you put the content in the tag, but it's at the cost of reliable results for pattern recognition. I don't know if you've ever used these apps -- trust me the difference between scanning a QR code and a Microsoft tag is the difference between earth and heaven. One works, sorta/kinda and the other one works instantly/brilliantly.
Now to make the scanning work as reliably as they did, they had to get the data out of the tag. Hence the web service.
And finally, to address your privacy concerns about the web service -- the data you are sending to MS when looking up a tag -- compare that to the data you give google when you use their search engine, or the data you give any webmail provider when you use webmail, or quite simply the faith you place in your ISP considering all your non-SSL traffice passes through their servers, in the clear. That is why I mentioned AdSense (and AdWords, and PageRank). How do you think Google improves it's search relevencies? By mining the data they get from us. How are you able to place so much trust in these entities that store your personal email, know what you search for, know every site you ever visit, but get all up in arms over sending a tag number, ipaddress to MS, and receiving some data back?
Colour would provide for greater information density, but if you were in certain environments where the ambient light was not white there could be issues unless complementary colours were used
According to a bit of a bit of tinkering around, the data is stored in the brightness (4 levels - so 2 bits per triangle) rather than the color. The color helps cellphone cameras callibrate according to whatever the incident light conditions are. The tags will work in monochrome as well, but you'll get best results with color.
The tradeoff is the limitation in quantity
The tradeoff with QR codes and such is the limitation in quantity. It's also in inferior pattern recognition. The tradeoff with MS Tags is net access.
I can already do paperless boarding at the airport where I live.
My suggestion had nothing to do with boarding. In an airport, you can watch the monitors for flight info, or listen for announcements. If the monitor has a tag next to my flight, I can scan the tag and get up to the minute information on my flight. Now I can go to the lounge, coffee shop, whatever, and rest assured that I'm not going to miss any announcement. In any case it's just an example. You can choose to not see the point if you wish (it seems you've already made that choice).
if you opened your web browser and used a scanner attached to your PC it would take you to our company web page with our profiles.
Your scanner + PC are very heavy and non-portable compared to my cell phone. I'll take this solution any day.
why bother with a piece of paper when you can beam v-card data between cellphones directly
You can't beam stuff to an iPhone (for example). Does beaming work across OSes (like winmo to blackberry) -- I don't know. The iphone is a valid scenario too -- people exchange numbers outside of work as well. In any case, I repeat, this was just an example. You don't even have to print the tag on your card. You could simply carry an image of it on your phone. Someone else pointed out another cool app -- tagging exhibits in museums and stuff so you can get more information on them than what can be physically displayed.
None of this requires a new encoding format nor does it require a closed single-vendor service to accompany it.
Yes -- the existing formats were inadequate. Either they suffered from poor patter recognition results, or they failed entirely in poor ambient conditions, or they had practical limits to the amount of data they could carry. MS tags get beyond this, but require a net connection. Your paranoia about a single-vendor service is also misplaced. Privacy concerns are always valid for services of this nature. But in terms of you as a consumer trusting the provider -- you already place much greater trust in single entities -- think search engines, webmail, etc.
On the other hand, if I go to Delta's website to see my flight information, only Delta really knows I did so
Actually your gateway and every hop along the way knows you were on Delta's site. If your traffic wasn't SSL-encrypted, they have the ability to even reconstruct the pages as you saw them. Somebody on your LAN with a packet sniffer could also do that. Your ISP essentially knows just about everything you do.
On the other hand, I don't think that it needs to be a monetized service.
A lot of people on this thread have expressed very sharp/derogatory comments about this aspect, and it really confounds me. How is it any differen than a search engine? Google isn't free -- they make their money through ads. i.e. somebody pays them money for providing the search service. Same as any other search engine. When you search for something on google, they know what you searched for, and they have so much information about the results/ads you clicked on. The data from that is mined to improve the targeting of their ads and their relevency rankings (AdSense, AdWords, PageRank). Google is the best search engine in the world because they continuously do the best job of mining this data and translating it into algorightms that improve their relevency. Nobody can do stuff for free -- even the FOSS folks need to make money from support, or dontions if nothing else. There's no technological reason the service can't be free, but MS did the work to develop this solution -- which executive in their right mind would say "you know what guys -- let's operate this thing at a loss -- I don't think we should make money off it".
I can't think of a reason that a protocol couldn't be developed that scanning apps would implement
I can't either. But who will operate the service for free? Even a consortium would have to make money in some way to keep the service up. Or if the government runs it, then the tax payers pay for it. In the current model, the guys that showed initiative (by creating the service and the apps) reap the reward (profit), the businesses/individuals who can gain from the service will pay for it directly, and eventually consumers will pay for it (indirectly) in the cost of goods (same as any other form of advertising). The enterpreneur made money, business got done, consumers got a service. That's as it should be. If consumers don't use the service, businesses won't see the value, and MS won't get paid. That's also as it should be.
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?
They appear to have solved a problem that nobody seems to have solved adequately so far. All existing solutions either fail to associate rich content with the tag, or score poorly on the pattern recognition front, and fail miserably in adverse conditions. This solution still has the drawback of requiring net access -- but if you have that, it's the best solution by far. So Microsoft's role has been to do the research into creating the tag format, developing and testing the scanning apps, getting OEMs and partners to adopt the technology, providing the service. They have not done this out of the goodness of their heart -- they're in the technology business, and they see this as a business opportunity. It's not a false market or a real market or anything in between. MS wants your business, and they're working to earn it -- same as any other business.
I apologise if I sound bitter in this reponse. I really got excited about the possibilites when I saw this app, that's why I submitted the story to slashdot. I had asked a question in the submission about adoption of this tech., and possible uses -- because I saw a lot of promise in it. I mentioned a couple of uses such as printing a tag on your business card that work contacts can just