OhRyan.ca

Things I found today that you check out:

• Screeny.app is free for the rest of the day! – Nice little lightweight mac app for recording screen casts.
• Tokyo Police Club covering Mylie Cyrus
• Windows Phone 7, it’s waterproof.

QR codes have been making a bit of noise in the local web/social media/design nerd for the past few months. Thanks in large part to Winnipeg’s sociallyist  blogger Erica Glasier.

For months now, my geek sensibilities have been nagging me about these futuristic looking pixel blocks. I’ve had some trouble narrowing down exactly what it is. It’s not the poor implementation that is so rampant (pro tip: they do not need to be black-on-white or isolated from your design); it’s not the fact that the average person is too lazy to figure out what a QR code is and how to use it. These are minor roadblocks for a technology that is actually fairly useful.

This morning on my bus ride in to work, it finally dawned on me.

QR codes are an out-dated placeholder technology. A technology designed for devices which are not powerful enough to do proper image recognition (quickly and reliably). In reality, we have already surpassed this technological limitation.

Take a look at this Aursuma. It’s essentially able to turn any print media into a rich-media presentation via an iPhone app (without the use of a machine-readable marker):

I cannot see any reason similar image recognition technology couldn’t be used for the simpler applications we currently user QR codes for.

Am I missing something?

• Fish stick sandwich burrito
• Vegan Black Metal Chef: Pad Thai
• The most efficient way to chop wood ever

The news is current reporting Japanese officials expect to find 10,000 fatalities!

In Canada you can you can text ASIA to 30333 to donate $5 to the Redcross.
Also,
WORLD VISION CANADA
www.worldvision.ca
SAVE THE CHILDREN FUND
www.savethechildren.ca/2011-japan-tsunami
OXFAM CANADA
www.oxfam.ca
FOREIGN AFFAIRS CANADA
1-800-387-3124
sos@international.gc.ca

And don’t forget about Google’s people finder.

Also Shaw has made calling to Japan free for the time being, as well as opening up NHK (channel 514) for most customers.

To keep up to date on the situation I highly recommend /r/worldnews and if you want to see the videos the news will be talking about in a few hours, check /r/videos.

PS. Image is by Jacob Cass

Shownotes in the morning.