Happy Birthday to the Barcode Today (07/10/09) is the 57th anniversary of the first patent on the barcode. Invented by Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver, they filed their patent in October 1949, No. 2,612,994 (pdf), on October 7, 1952. The original concept was for a process that would code data in circles (like a bullseye ), so it could be scanned in any direction. A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data. Originally, barcodes represented data in the lines and the spacing of parallel lines, and may be known as linear or 1 dimensional barcodes. Barcodes can also come in patterns of squares, dots, hexagons and other patterns within images termed 2 dimensional matrix codes. Although 2D systems use symbols other than bars, they are generally referred to as barcodes as well. The first use of barcodes was to label train carriages, but they were not successful until they were used to automate supermarket checkout systems, a task in which they have become almost universal. Their use has spread to other roles as well, tasks that are generically referred to as Auto ID Data Capture (AIDC). Barcodes can be read by optical scanners called barcode readers, or scanned from an image by special software. In Japan, most mobile phones have built-in scanning software for 2D codes, and similar software is becoming available on smartphone platforms. The Barcode is truly here to stay which is great news for Newgate!
|