Comments on: QR Code with MECARD and hCard

By: Aaron Toponce : The Three Laws Robots Can Read

Aaron Toponce : The Three Laws Robots Can Read — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 22:02:07 +0000

[...] anyone can generate and use QR codes without fear of royalty payments, licensing restrictions, etc. I even made my own business cards out of QR Codes. Anyway, today I saw the Three Laws of Robotics in QR codes on the door frame of my physics [...]

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 14:52:08 +0000

What issues?

1) The name field is limited only to what you provide it with. If you scan my card (with a barcode reader that has full MECARD support), the full name, separated by the last and first even, is available.
2) Yes. This is a limitation. However, it does support multiple TEL numbers.
3) The address can be parsed by address field, city, state, zip, etc. The fields divided by commas (,) denote PO box, room number, house number, city, prefecture, zip code and country, in order.
4) I don’t know what your problem is with the URL, but it scans fine here, and clicking the link pulls up the page.

By: Ed Urbaniak

Ed Urbaniak — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 01:07:33 +0000

I am totally with you on making this automatic. The hcard (as far as I can tell) doesn’t populate a card or even give you the option to add a new contact. The MECARD seems the way to go, but some many issues.

1) Name field (N) populated only the first name on andriod (user intervention
2) MECARD doesn’t appear to allow for phone types (mobile, home, work, fax)
3) The address all populates the address field and not the city, state and zip.
4) URL doesn’t seem to be recognized.

By: gcbound

gcbound — Sat, 29 May 2010 22:39:43 +0000

When I use a Google Chart API call like this:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&choe=UTF-8&chs=400×400&chl=MECARD%3AN%3AJohn%20Doe%3BTEL%3A%28123%29%20456-7890%3BEMAIL%3AJohn.Doe%40doe.com%3BADR%3A123%20N.%20JD%20St.%2CDoe%20City%2CHawaii%2C12345%2CUnited%20States%3BURL%3Ahttp%5C%3A%2F%2Fjohndoe.com%2Findex.php%3B%3B

and scan the resulting QR code, Barcode Scanner on the Droid shows the URL and it’s a link I can actually click on. But I thought that URL would be included as the Gmail Contact “website” field and it isn’t.

Wondering why that doesn’t work…

By: Andy Mabbett

Andy Mabbett — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:23:11 +0000

Neat; but my preference is for a QRCode containing only the URL of a web page, which has the contact details marked up with an hCard microformat and/ or downloadable as a vCard.

The QRCode is thus smaller; and any future changes to the contact details are instantly available to anyone still holding the business card.

The web page can also contain additional information, such as “I’m away for two weeks”, “For sales enquires, contact…” or “Special offer, this week only…”.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 01:42:32 +0000

@RainCT yeah, it will be an interesting run. We’ll see what happens.

By: RainCT

RainCT — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 23:42:19 +0000

Awesome! My Nokia 5800 (using “QuickMark”) also recognized it perfectly and gave me the option to add it to my contact list, call you, send you a mail or visit the website.

However, I’m not convinced of the idea of not having anything else other than the image on the card.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:00:03 +0000

@Graham I don’t know about you, but when I get a business card, I put the contact information in my mobile or in Google contacts, then I toss the card. I don’t have stacks of business cards. In fact, I don’t think I could fine one that isn’t mine if I tried. Further, I doubt the one who receives my business card will likely forget me or who I am. Your point is taken though. Although, I don’t understand why you would have a stack of QR code business cards, if you’ve likely already scanned them anyway.

By: Graham Lyon

Graham Lyon — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:27:59 +0000

Interesting. Have you thought about the fact that if there’s absolutely no alpha-numeric info on the card then they won’t be able to tell that the card is yours? I don’t know about you, but I have a small collection of cards in my wallet and a friend has an enormous stack on his desk – if they were all qrcodes then I’d have no idea who’s was who’s without scanning them all (imagine I’m without my mobile or it’s flat or died and so I no longer have them all in my address book). If I were to go down the qrcodes path (and I think I might) then I’d definitely have it as a standard business card with the qrcode to the side or on the back or something – if only to ease migration.

By: JGJones

JGJones — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:04:25 +0000

Awesome…tried scanning in your QR code image on my Andriod and it give me the contact details for me. It’s a fantastic idea to put it into a business card too. Great idea.

By: ethana2

ethana2 — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:47:53 +0000

Barcode Scanner on Droid says:

“Found contact info”

Aaron Toponce
(phone number)
(email)
(web link)

[Add contact] [Dial number] [Send email]

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:40:52 +0000

@Jonathan Carter Yeah, I probably should have added the ‘+1′ before the number, but I doubt I’ll be visiting any international contacts. However, on the next batch, I’ll update that.

Also, I think something might be wrong with your Nokia. The string, as decoded is:

“MECARD:N:Toponce,Aaron;TEL:18016868086;EMAIL:aaron.toponce@gmail.com;URL:http\://google.com/profiles/aaron.toponce;;”

The backslash “http\://” is intentional. “:” is a reserved character in MECARD, so it needs to be escaped for URIs.

By: Jonathan Carter

Jonathan Carter — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:34:52 +0000

I think it would be nice if you added a “+” before your phone number, that way people outside of North America can just add it without edits.

Btw, your QR code has your URL as “htt\://google.com/profiles/aaron.topence”

Not sure if that backslash instead of a “p” was a typo or something that went wrong with the QR code. Then again it might be something that went wrong with my stupid Nokia E75

By: Den

Den — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:08:10 +0000

check out this link: http://www.servletsuite.com/mecard.htm