New QR code tool: Microsoft tag (Beta) Initial Experience

What is the most exciting thing at CES today?

I believe Steve Ballmer said Windows 7 Beta! A friend told me this evening that "I installed Windows 7". I asked, "How many build numbers ?", "7000", I said, "Sorry, it's out of date. Beta has come out in the morning ".

Ballmer's humor is also very interesting:

In addition, it is excited that Microsoft has published its own QR code Microsoft tag.

Oh! You are not mistaken. The microsft tag is a QR code! It is Microsoft's own barcode (qrcode) technology.Black/white boxWhat's different about the QR code is that Microsoft tag isColorColorOf! Not a box,Triangle! Yes, the following is:

What is it?

First, let's take a look at the features of Microsoft tag. Microsoft tag is not only capable of qrcode, but also based onHigh-capacity color bar code"(Hccbs = high capacity color barcode) technology. Well, this hccbs was developed by Microsoft Research!

Why call it"High Capacity?

Qrcode is a black box or a black box, And hccbs uses a colored triangle. Let's make a comparison:

I have come to the conclusion at a glance that the qrcode uses a large area with the same amount of information, while Microsoft tag only uses 1/4 square meters to express it! The larger the amount of information, the larger the proportion!

Why is it so small? Another reason is that Microsoft tag does not save the original information as qrcode, but only saves the unique ID of the information! The original information corresponding to this unique number is stored on the Microsoft Server. In this way, you can save a lot of information and collect statistics on the usage of each tag. It is ideal for publications and electronic products. Do you still have many advantages?

DecodingProgram?

The decoding program is now available in beta version. Please download it to your Windows Mobile Phone (you can also open http://gettag.mobi/to download it with another version ).

Wait!

If you have never used quickmark before, please install this program at the same time!

Quickmark is an excellent mobile phone software for decoding qrcode and is widely used. The following section compares Microsoft tag reader with quickmark.

Start!

Let's take a look at Microsoft tag reader. my mobile phone is the common version of Dopod S1 (2.0 megapixel camera, OMAP 201 MHz CPU). After installation, it looks like this:

Press the "OK" key to enable the full screen camera. At this time, you can start decoding! So excited!

Move the phoneHorizontalAlign with the first figure above. After Freezing it, let's take a look:

Damn! Failed bird.

Note: The mobile phone must be on a horizontal footing. After several attempts, we can see this:

Green light, green, indicates decoding is successful, and MessageBox contains the original information.

Well. What are the most widely used QR codes? Yes!Business cards! The general business card format is vCard.

Now we log on to the tag site to create a vCard.

I have already created one, but it can only be displayed in PDF, WMF, and XPS formats. You can download it here.

Decoding, haha!

This failed and failed to be solved. Try again.

It's too big to be read. FT...

Oh. I finally read the business card.

Feelings

1. the decoding process is too cumbersome. FirstPress OKOpen the camera, and thenTake a photo, And thenPress OKTo decode ...... Oh, can I press less keys?

2. the decoding accuracy is too low. Try at least 10 times to see if you have succeeded once. It is too vague or incorrect. Come on again (the camera of mobile phones also need to be refueled ).

Let's take a look at the performance of quickmark.

Take vCard as an example:

Don't doubt, you can use quickmark to solve this problem! You can also create your own business card here.

Start quickmark and align it with it:

Do you need other processes? Well, there will be a "Haha" prompt After decoding, and no longer need other processes.

Accuracy? Try it by yourself.

Conclusion

The microsft tag is indeed amazing. Only the information number saved is the most unique place, which is very convenient for statistics and you can set the effective time. It should be said that the future is very promising.

However, I have some doubts.

1. It is used for the tag on the Print Object. Can the tag be normally read after the color fades? Qrcode is black and white.

2. The original information is stored on the Microsoft server, so the information creation is certainly not as convenient as qrcode?

Well, that's it.

Reference resources:

Http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090108/microsoft-tag-microsofts-own-2d-barcode/

Http://tag.microsoft.com

Http://blogs.msdn.com/tag/

Http://www.microsoft.com/tag/content/overview/microsoftTag.aspx