What Is A QR Code And How Does It Work?

Everybody does not necessarily know what a QR code is. These small black and white squares are among us.

QR (for Quick Response) is a more powerful bar code than the traditional barcode. I can be read by mobile phones (smartphones) equipped with scanner applications of QR codes. It is used mainly to display website addresses (URLs) in Ads.

QR Code can store up to 7089 numeric characters, 4296 alphanumeric characters or 2953 bytes (8-bit binary).

It was invented in Japan in 1994 for tracking parts in a Toyota car factory, and put under open source code in 1999 (free License by Denso-Wave even if they still own the patent rights and the Trademark).

By now, you’re probably pretty familiar with QR codes (a.k.a. 2-D bar codes), whether or not you realize it. They’re the little square symbols that look like this:

                                                                  

The cool part is that anyone can make them. Yes, that includes you. Just Google “QR code generator” and you’ll have a plethora of websites that make it incredibly easy to make your own QR code. But that’s not even the best part. Once you have a QR code, you can mix things up, add color and graphics, and so much more. The key is to know how to keep your code scan-able.

Some people have already cracked this code, like Marc Jacobs. Others, like Yellow Pages, still have some homework to do. So how can you tell which edits will ruin your code and which ones will still allow it to be scanned? The question you should be asking is “what can’t I edit?”

The “No-Zones”

QR codes are made up of black squares and white squares. Each of these squares is called a module. In every QR code, there are certain modules that must not be covered or edited, else the code won’t scan. Here, they are all highlighted in different colors:

                                                 

• The three large squares highlighted in red are the position markers. These tell the scanner where the edges of the code are.
• The smaller red square is an alignment marker. This acts as a reference point for the scanner, making sure everything lines up properly. In bigger codes, there are several of these squares.
• The red strips of alternating black and white modules are called timing patterns. They define the positioning of the rows and columns.
• The green sections determine the format. This tells the scanner whether it’s a website, text message, Chinese symbols, numbers, or any combination of these.
• The modules highlighted in blue represent the version number. Basically, the more modules in the code, the higher the version (up to v40, which is 177×177 modules). If the code is version 6 or smaller, the version does not need to be defined here because the scanner can literally count the modules and determine the version on its own.

Everything Else

So now that you know what you can’t edit, that means everything else is free game, right? Almost. All the remaining modules are grouped into sections of 8 modules. These groups (which I will call “bytes” from now on) fit together in the gray area like a jigsaw puzzle:

                                         

Now, when a smartphone or scanner reads a QR code, each byte is determined to be either completely readable or completely unreadable. That means that if you change one single module (e.g. turning a black square into a white square), the entire byte containing that module is rendered un-readable. At first, that sounds like a bad thing, but it actually makes things a lot easier. More on that in a second.

The Really Cool Part

In the Marc Jacobs code I linked to earlier, there was a sketch of a small girl covering part of the code. In spite of the fact that some of the code is covered up, it is still fully scan-able. This is because of the Reed Solomon error correction method. Basically, all QR codes are created with built-in error correction algorithms that allow them to be scanned even if a few bytes are missing/covered/replaced by a picture of your cat. The larger the version, the more bytes you can edit.

You can use the Version and Maximum Data Capacity Table on Denso-Wave’s website to determine exactly how many bytes you can turn into awesome graphic art. You need to know the version of your code (also found in the version table), and how many characters the message contains (i.e. if your code is built from the website “http://www.your-awesome-website.com”, that would be 35 characters).

The table will give you a letter that represents the level of error-correction contained in your code. Here’s what these letters mean:

• Level L – You can alter up to 7% of the code without ruining its scan-ability. If your code has 154 bytes, you can edit 10 (maybe 11) bytes and it will still scan successfully.
• Level M – You can alter up to 15% of the code.
• Level Q – You can alter up to 25% of the code.
• Level H – You can alter as much as 30% of your code.

So now you should be able to do the following:

–          Generate a QR code

–          Identify the No-Zones

–          Figure out the placement of the bytes

–          Figure out how many bytes you can edit

Now that you know just about everything involved in creating and understanding a QR code, let’s dive into how to turn it into a unique piece of graphic (or even hand-drawn) art.

Ready, Set…

At this point, it all comes down to asking yourself “what if,” and then finding the answer to that question. Look at your QR code, figure out which bytes you want to try to change, and then change them. Scan it to see if it still works. If it still works, make another change. If not, go back and figure out why. I’ll show you an example of what this process might look like.

I started out with a regular QR code, isolated which bytes I wanted to play around with, and outlined them in red (top left). First, I just scrambled all the modules within the red border (top right). It still scanned. Then, I took out all the modules completely (bottom left). It still scanned. Lastly, I filled the red border with a portrait of one of the most influential aliens from my childhood.

       

…Go!

It’s a matter of experimentation. Think of an idea, try it and scan it. Then work from there. Go online and look for other creative QR code graphic art, to see what boundaries other people are pushing. 

Axis Vidius: Meet world’s smallest drone equipped with a camera

The Axis Vidius is world’s smallest quadcopter with camera equipped for a first person view drone footage. The drone itself is a square of dimensions not bigger than 1.5 inches that can astonish everyone with its livestream and video recording ability.

The Axis Vidius weighs under 0.55 pounds and its users don’t need to register with Federation Aviation Administration (FAA). Axis Drones calls its Vidius model to be the world’s smallest drone fitted with a video camera.

Axis Vidius can be controlled via smartphone apps but it also comes with a 2.4GHz controller (Source: Axis Drones)

The Axis Vidius has a flight time of around five to seven minutes on a 20-minute USB charge. The pilots of Axis Vidius can stream their live video feed via WiFi. Even though Axis Vidius can be controlled via a smartphone, the Axis Vidius also comes with a 2.4 GHz controller for piloting the drone.

The Axis Vidius comes with a 6-axis gyro stabilisation and can do 360 degree flips and rolls while streaming videos. The world’s smallest drone records video in 420p resolution which may not sound exciting for many.

The Axis Vidius is also equipped with LED lights for night time flying. The drone is available for preorder for $75 before January 7 and is expected to ship on or before January 29.

How ’70s Cryptography Could Improve Bitcoin in 2016 and Beyond(Old is Gold)

As long as a system requires technical expertise for operation, it will be relegated to use by a small group of technologists.

If every person who walked onto an elevator was presented with a keyboard and DOS-style command line terminal, most of us would be looking for the stairs. The nerds among us may eagerly seek out the proverbial programmable elevators, but the average person just wants to push a button to get from one floor to the next, not master gravity-defying vehicles.

Bitcoin addresses have long been a point of confusion for new users introduced to the technology. It's difficult explaining a bitcoin address through analogy, because none of the comparisons quite match. They're kind of like email addresses – free to create and unlimited in number – but they're randomly assigned, and difficult to memorize, more like a phone number. But bitcoin addresses are not always bidirectional like a phone number.

Suppose you receive money from a friend, and later you want to send some money back to him. The address you received funds from initially may belong to your friend or just the bitcoin service he uses. Funds sent to the address may arrive to your friend – assuming he has backed up his wallet – or they may just line the bitcoin service’s pockets, never to be refunded.

A bitcoin address and QR code

Also, the mere receipt of a payment, unlike a phone call or email, rarely helps identify individual payers or explain why the transfer was made, since there are no area codes or analogues to caller ID, nor invoice numbers. The small number of users who investigate the details of bitcoin’s inner workings will come away with a vague impression that sending funds to the same address multiple times (referred to as "address reuse" by the bitcoin community) is somehow dangerous.

This vague impression, linked to poorly understood privacy implications and the seemingly distant threat of cryptographic attacks on reused private keys, may not ward users off from the very real dangers of address reuse.

When it comes to addresses, bitcoin resembles the Internet before DNS. Today, we visit websites through user-friendly domain names like 'Google.com', but early Internet adopters directed their computers to connect to other networks by referencing inscrutable-looking IP addresses like '209.222.18.222'.

IP addresses remain a core part of the protocols that help devices connect, but system designers and engineers have since succeeded in hiding this from users by tying domain names to IP addresses behind the scenes. In doing so, they’ve allowed users to interact with recognizable identities, like the Google search engine.

Promise and pitfalls:

As bitcoin services mature and seek to include new audiences, they will also need an address resolution system that ties user-unfriendly bitcoin addresses to the identities of individuals and businesses that users have financial relationships with.

However, as we abstract bitcoin addresses away from the user interface, we must take caution.

The goal is to make it easier for users to pay each other, while dealing with the fundamental technical challenges related to address reuse. Tempting as it may be to build traditional third-party lookup systems, this naive approach will turn into a security and privacy quagmire of personal information disclosure and theft. They would be the kind of high-value databases that blackhat hackers seek out as reconnaissance for subsequent attacks on individuals.

Whenever possible, we must not ask users to give up on expectations of security and privacy in order to gain the software usability they require.

While consumer demands for security and privacy vary, businesses are rarely willing to disclose their income and expense data – which may contain trade secrets – to business partners, competitors or the world at large. Likewise, we should not expect individual users to divulge their income and spending habits to their friends, preferred service providers and unfamiliar analytic companies.

Making this disclosure a prerequisite for bitcoin use would have dire implications for adoption. If it all possible, we should seek easy-to-use payment identifiers that meet business and individual expectations of security and privacy without the inherent pitfalls of trusted third parties.

Learning from history:

Bitcoin developers have addressed other user pain points in the past by repurposing old cryptographic research for bitcoin applications.

In 2013, bitcoin developers addressed the headache of wallet backups by applying concepts such as key-derivation functions and hierarchical key management, dating back to the 1990s and early 2000s. Whereas old bitcoin wallets required users to constantly create new wallet backups, a user could backup a hierarchical wallet once when she first created the wallet, while still yielding a virtually unlimited number of bitcoin addresses to cover future transactions.

The most promising path to a user-friendly bitcoin addressing system dates back even further in the annals of cryptography to the 1970s. This decade marked a groundswell of research on crucial technologies that underpin today's Internet.

Many of the cryptographers of this era were ethically motivated, and saw their work as pivotal in creating an Internet that promoted free speech and secure global commerce, rather than one dominated by government surveillance and corporate control.

In the mid-to-late ’70s, three of the era's most prominent cryptographers – Whitfield Diffie, Martin Hellman, and Ralph Merkle – jointly produced one of these key technologies.

Computers that want to communicate securely and privately must first exchange keys used to encrypt and decrypt messages. Diffie, Hellman, and Merkle developed a way for two computers with no prior interaction to create shared keys. The seemingly magical product of this protocol – now known as Diffie-Hellman-Merkle key exchange – is a set of keys known only by the two parties involved, regardless of the presence of any eavesdroppers.

This is like being able to conduct a loud conversation with a friend in a room of spies without any risk of being overheard, a seeming impossibility created through the brilliance of asymmetric cryptography.

Bitcoin developers have been working to create Diffie-Hellman-Merkle-derived addressing schemes for months now, but a mobile-friendly version was recently codified in Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 47 by Justus Ranvier, who refers to these new addresses as Reusable Payment Codes.

Major bitcoin wallets, software library authors and exchanges are currently working to deploy Reusable Payment Codes in their businesses in 2016. These will allow businesses to better protect user privacy on the blockchain, while retaining the ability to identify their customers when such identification is required.

Bitcoin users will soon be able to look up their friends through social networks and other familiar identifiers such as email addresses. Businesses that implement Reusable Payment Codes will be smoothing over the bitcoin user experience, and set the peer-to-peer finance ecosystem up to invite its next several million more users.

Google Design Chief Says Smartphone UI Needs to Move Beyond the iPhone

According to Matias Duarte, the Vice President of Design at Google, the iPhone's user interface, or in other words, iOS, is "heavy and burdensome." He also talked about Android Wear UI design.

Speaking to Wired, Duarte said a lot of smartphone hardware and software designs have been inspired by the original iPhone, which might not have even been the most suitable at the time. The launch of the iPhone however was a "crystallising moment" Duarte added, and the industry moved forward the Apple way, leaving behind the designs pioneered by companies like Palm and BlackBerry.

The problem according to Duarte is that no major innovations have happened in smartphone interface design since, and the industry as a whole is stuck with the iPhone model without really assessing our changing needs.

"It's easy for things to settle on standards that are sub optimal. Its very for things to catalyse into local maxima that are hard to break out of... "You had things like the PalmPilot, which was a little screen with a little row of icons, but then you also had things like a Blackberry that didn't look like that at all... "Frankly it's not a world where the best package wins. It would've been very easy, if Apple had been a year later to market, that instead the market's expectations of what a smartphone should be crystallised around something that's more like what the Blackberry was... But it also crystallised a lot of other things that were kind of stayed even by that point, like the rows of icons, which don't scale very well. This idea of a tiny grid that you manually curate starts to feel very heavy and burdensome," Duarte said.

Speaking about the design philosophy of apps arranged in rows on smartphones and tablets, Duarte said, "I'm tempted occasionally to just organise all my icons by colour... It starts to look really old and it starts to bring a lot of baggage with it... It can't be the ultimate solution, it is completely implausible. It cannot be that the optimal solution for 30 years ago, one of the potentially viable solutions for 30 years ago, is going to be applicable for all time."

Talking about Apple's watchOS, Duarte said, "Why should there be a grid of apps on a watch? It's this tiny thing and it's hard to pick through and hard to organise and so on and so forth. And as you accrue and use more and more services that's going to start to get really ridiculous. You're going to have a massive grid on a little tiny screen. So that created this opportunity where we could try something new and different."

Talking about the future of smartphone and tablet UI, and if it will continue to be based on the original iPhone UI, Duarte said, "I hope not. I really hope not. That would make me very sad and I'm doing my hardest to make sure that that is not the case. That is one of the things that I care passionately about. I'm going to do my hardest to make sure that in 10 years time you're not going to sitting with a single laptop and walking around with a phone. But instead working with a much richer, continuous mesh of devices and interfaces."

Coming to Android Wear, Duarte said he is not sure if the platform "has the right solution or even is on a vector to the right solution." Google for now is studying which product is successful and which are not. Last year he started what he calls a 'design incubator' to do "new things with design" both internally at Google and externally. Material Design, which debuted with Android 5.0 Lollipop was one of his first major projects.

He thinks that the designs on which our phones, tablet and PC depend upon are still underdeveloped. "When we talk about phones and websites and apps, this is an incredibly young medium still. It's changing very quickly and it's still almost at this raw industrial state."

When asked what Google is working on for now and how it will change the smartphone in everyone's pocket, Duarte said, "I hope so. But even if I knew I couldn't tell you."

It is worth mentioning that the search giant has confirmed that Android N will ship without Oracle's proprietary Java application programming interfaces. Instead, the company will be utilising OpenJDK, an open source version of Oracle's Java Development Kit

Netflix All Set for India, To Be Announced At CES 2016 Next Week

It’s time India got the taste of uncensored, latest television series streamed online on mobile. We’re talking about Netflix, the popular online streaming platform, which will reportedly make its Indian debut announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2016, Las Vegas next week. The service will be offered to consumers in the coming months.

According to the Hindu Business Line (HBL) report, Netflix could join hands with local telecom operator, thereby taking advantage of the growing 4G connectivity access in the country. It’s highly probable that Reliance Jio could bear the fruit of partnership, providing video streaming at 4G speeds in India.

Users can subscribe to Netflix for viewing latest video content known in the market. The company charges $8.99 (Rs 600) per month in the US for HD-quality shows and serials. In India, Netflix is expected to take the Apple Music route and price it much lower than its US pricing. 

India already has services like Bigflix, RComm, Google Play Movies and even Youtube offers chance to pay-and-watch movie titles in the country but Netflix entering India could change the dynamics of video consumption on mobile in the country and your life.

Differential data pricing: All you need to know

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Wednesday extended the last date for submission of comments on its paper on differential data pricing to January 7 from December 30.

Similarly, the last date for counter-comments has been pushed to January 14.

This is the second time the regulatory body has sought views and comments on for framing policies on internet services.

Earlier this year, TRAI released a draft consultation paper seeking views from the industry and the general public on the need for regulations for over-the-top (OTT) players such as Whatsapp, Skype, Viber etc, security concerns and net neutrality. The objective of this consultation paper, the regulator said, was to analyse the implications of the growth of OTTs and consider whether or not changes were required in the current regulatory framework.

This time, the consultation paper is about differential data pricing or zero rated applications and websites — especially as social media giant Facebook is agressively pushing its Free Basics scheme.

Internet activists, on the other hand, have once again put together responses to TRAI's questions, making it easy for internet users to submit their suggestions on differential data pricing.

Here is a rundown on the issue.

Net neutrality - guiding principle of internet

A neutral treatment of all content on the internet is an essential pre-requisite for fostering permission-less innovation which is one of the guiding principles of the internet, an IT expert said on Friday.

Satish Babu, chair, Internet Society - Trivandrum Chapter, and vice chairman of the Asia-Pacific Regional At-Large Organization of ICANN, made the observation here while speaking on the topic "Recent Developments in Internet Governance".

Permission-less innovation is the principle that allows anyone to deliver a service to the global community of internet users, without the need for permission from any central authority.

Babu pointed out that well-known examples include Google, Amazon and Facebook where entrepreneurs started out with little more than a dream.

"No other medium in the history of humankind has had such potential and global reach as the internet, and it was unfortunate to see practices such as zero-rating that restricted the neutrality and unified global nature of the internet," said Babu.

He added that governing internet was a complex and challenging task given its globally distributed nature, lack of centralized authority, jurisdiction issues, diversity of stakeholders, diversity of services, and plurality of content.

"Although the multilateral model -- loosely structured on the basis of UN system -- had been proposed, it is the Multi-Stakeholder Model that is accepted today as the most appropriate," said Babu.

In the Multi-Stakeholder Governance Model, all the stakeholders in a given system, who, in the case of the internet, include businesses, governments, research institutions, NGOs and civil society, are given formal roles in the governance process.

He also pointed out that in the internet ecosystem, organisations such as ICANN, ISOC and IGF (Internet Governance Forum) follow the Multi-Stakeholder Model of Governance, which enables all stakeholders to make them heard in the policy development process.

ISOC is an international not-for-profit society set up in 1992 as a result of efforts by several internet pioneers such as Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn, mandated with a mission to promote the open development, evolution and use of the internet.

It has over 55,000 individual and 130 institutional members organized through about 100 chapters around the world.