what you’re saying is that we need a better QR Code format
I’m not a precision optics guy, so I don’t know for sure, but it seems like the problem there is one of reliability. We’re talking about encoding digital data into an analog format, with enough error correction that it isn’t lossy, which limits our options; it needs to work in low light, at a distance, at any rotation, when a big blob of mud is stuck to it, when you’re standing off-center, when there’s reflections on it, when you’re moving, when it’s moving, in any color, with light and dark inverted, printed with any process, on any material, with any computer-connected camera, and it needs to work essentially instantly, in a standard format that enough manufacturers have agreed on that billions of phones could theoretically decode it without any additional hardware or software. Honestly it’s kind of a miracle that it happened once. I think the pixels need to be a minimum size, and it seems like Version-40 QR codes might be getting to around the limit of what we could reasonably expect a smartphone camera to reliably capture.
Because easily scanned data engraved in stone scannable by pocket supercomputer is pretty sci-fi.
Whoa, you’re absolutely right. I grouse and complain about QR codes replacing things like menus at restaurants, but if I could walk through a cemetery in 2126 and read a short obituary of someone who dies tomorrow, despite the mortuary being long since out of business, that would indeed feel sci-fi.
I’m not a precision optics guy, so I don’t know for sure, but it seems like the problem there is one of reliability. We’re talking about encoding digital data into an analog format, with enough error correction that it isn’t lossy, which limits our options; it needs to work in low light, at a distance, at any rotation, when a big blob of mud is stuck to it, when you’re standing off-center, when there’s reflections on it, when you’re moving, when it’s moving, in any color, with light and dark inverted, printed with any process, on any material, with any computer-connected camera, and it needs to work essentially instantly, in a standard format that enough manufacturers have agreed on that billions of phones could theoretically decode it without any additional hardware or software. Honestly it’s kind of a miracle that it happened once. I think the pixels need to be a minimum size, and it seems like Version-40 QR codes might be getting to around the limit of what we could reasonably expect a smartphone camera to reliably capture.
Whoa, you’re absolutely right. I grouse and complain about QR codes replacing things like menus at restaurants, but if I could walk through a cemetery in 2126 and read a short obituary of someone who dies tomorrow, despite the mortuary being long since out of business, that would indeed feel sci-fi.
I mean, it already does.
3D ASCII art?!? That’s amazing!