"Scanning" is for the mobile age, and it also have use for archiving with Paperback
Tagging the streets with QR code is basically Zig Forums's passtime (see twitter.com
FIle embedding is about hiding data in weird places for times when a website only accepts images, videos, audio and such. See for YouTube
Challenge 1: bash script that hides data in EXIF/*IFF metadata blocks, or even MKV/MP4 metadata blocks
Challenge 2: hash visualization similar to hashblot and polyhash
UGH!
Translation: I'm too stupid to make something, someone else please make it for me!
Just for fun? Or do you want to solve a real problem? Making 2d barcodes isn't difficult. Making something more useful than existing solutions is difficult.
Just a FOSS version of a circular/annular/dart barcode, because it looks good for sharing PGP keys, IPFS/Torrent hashes or hyperlinks.
The Messenger code looks pretty obvious with 4 "eyes" 90 degrees apart for position/alignment, but we don't know where the timing patterns are.
The Kik code is even weirder as there is no position/alignment pattern or Timing pattern.
Snapchat's code (non-annular) looks pretty arbitrary with the logo, the format is static and scanning is easy, adapting it for Zig Forums or some other project would be sweet.
There's a reason why color isn't used for printed barcodes because blacks are cheap.
negligible cost and phone-to-phone data transfer makes it easy to use color barcodes.
First of all, cost of ink amounts to millions of dollars. Second, color printers have quadruple the complexity and failure rate of black and white printers. From which follows the third, color printers are vastly more expensive to operate.
Firstly, if you have the money to print colored posters, the side cost of colored barcodes are negligible.
Second, you have not answer the phone-to-phone or screen-to-camera data transfer question.
Printers are garbage and produce vastly different color results, cameras are garbage and produce vastly different color results, time is garbage and changes printed colors over time, the whole idea of using color as scannable information is a bad idea.
Ah and let's not forget how ambient color (daytime, surrounding materials and colors, etc) change the way things look.