A fun UX I've been playing with for a project: If you scan this QR code, a small .png file will be downloaded to your device (SFW, I promise).
The kicker is that file is not hosted on any server, anywhere. It lives completely within the QR code itself!
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The kicker is that file is not hosted on any server, anywhere. It lives completely within the QR code itself!
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Your reaction (like mine was) might be to say "yeah it's just raw data you can put anything in there" - True! But there's a gap between that and giving any old user access to that data in file format. Smartphone scanners want to a standard URI. A file address, effectively.
So the hack here is that I made a very simple web page that takes file data in as a base64 encoded url fragment, immediately decodes that data, and hands it back the user as a file download in their browser. The file data never leaves the phone.
So I, as the file provider, can share things completely offline, from anything can generate a QR code (microcontroller, offline machine with printer, etc).
The downloader does need to access my silly little web page as a formality to please the QR code scanners.
The downloader does need to access my silly little web page as a formality to please the QR code scanners.
This was inspired by itty.bitty.site - which is a similar idea, but for tiny portable web pages rather than file transfer.
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