The History (and Future) of the Barcode

When shopping, you don’t even give them a second thought. Nobody does. And why would they? Barcodes are just a little white square with some black lines, in an insignificant location on the packaging. They have nothing to do with the marketing pizazz of the package, nothing to do with the product itself, all it does as far as the consumer is concerned is allow the product to be scanned at the checkout so it can be paid for. Not exactly the highlight of the shopping experience. However, I don’t think anything has changed the retail environment more than that little obscure white and black square. 

Does anyone ever really think about how this all got started? Where and when did this become such a large part of the retail world? Well, I did. I started to realize that everywhere I looked there was some sort of barcode. And today there are so many different types and different uses for them that it is astounding. So let me share with you a short history of how these little stripes of black lines became such a big part of our lives. You might be surprised to see how barcodes entered our everyday lives. 

Believe it or not, it all started back in 1948 with a man named Bernard Silver. Mr. Silver was a grad student at the Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia. One day he overheard the president of a rather large food chain at the time asking one of the Deans to do some research into a way for some sort of system to read product info during the checkout process. Now you might think, what is so strange about that? That is exactly what the codes are used for today. Sure. But wait, there’s more.

Mr. Silver heard the conversation and decided he was going to work on this himself. So Silver told one of his friends, Norman Joseph Woodland about what he had heard and they started to work on a variety of systems. They came up with all sorts of ideas and plans. None of which resemble what we use today. But after working on the project for some time, Woodland became inspired by Morse Code.  After some thought he finally came up with an idea and he scribbled his very first barcode in the sand at a beach by taking the Morse Code and extending the dots and dashes of the code downward making long narrow and wide lines out of them. Of course now they had to come up with some way for a machine or device to read the lines. Back at their “think-tank” which was Woodland’s fathers Florida apartment they designed a device that was adapted from technology used in the film industry. Using devices designed to read optical soundtracks in movies, he attached a 500 watt light bulb to it that would shine through the paper containing the code onto a RCA 935 photomultiplier tube from a movie projector. He later figured out that his system would work much better if the code were printed in a circle rather than a line so it could be read from any angle. His idea worked. Soon, in 1949, Woodland and Silver filed for a patent and were later awarded one in 1952 for a “Classifying Apparatus and Method”. This included the linear and bull’s-eye (circular) printing patterns as well as the machine needed to read the codes. Barcodes were born.

Now considering where the thought for this invention came from, you would think that once the patent was achieved the codes would be put to use in the grocery industry. But that is not what happened, and to be honest, the barcodes were far off at this point from being used in any retail setting. After gaining the patent it was sold to a company named Philco. They were a big name back then in the realm of electronics and electronic consumer devices. Such things as air conditioners, refrigerators, car radios, etc.. were all things that Philco was known for. I’m sure Philco saw something in the invention that caused them to purchase the patent. But what they saw was dollar signs because they turned around and sold the patent to RCA later the same year they purchased it. 

During this time, the railroad industry was working on a system of their own. Because railroad cars were traveling nation-wide and were often transferred from one line to another, there needed to be a way to track the cars.  A man by the name of David J Collins was well aware of this having just spent his undergraduate days working for the Pennsylvania Railroad. After graduating he went to work for Sylvania who was working on Military computer projects. When Collins began work at Sylvania he tried his hand at a project that would solve the railroads problems. He worked on a system that was slightly different than the current barcode technology of the time. He used reflective colored stripes that could be read by computers that Sylvania already had produced and tested. By 1967 the railroad had his system installed in about 95% of all the trains in service. By this time Collins saw the great potential for his system or barcode systems in general and took this idea to the higher ups at Sylvania. Much to Collins’ dismay they denied exploring other avenues because they figured they were making money from the railway system and decided to put their money and efforts into that. Collins then quit Sylvania and formed his own company called Computer Identics Corporation.

After working on the systems for a couple years, Collins and his company made some advancement in the barcodeIdentics Corporation were able to make their systems a tiny bit smaller than what was possible at the time it was a big step. And that was what they were doing. They were working on streamlining the process and the machinery. At that time, the Spring of 1966 they installed their first two systems. One went into a General Motors plant in Pontiac, Michigan, where it was used to monitor the distribution of automobile axle units. The other was installed in General Trading Company’s distribution facility in Carlsbad, California. It was used to help direct shipments on conveyor systems to the proper loading bay doors.

This had worked to prove that the system was indeed feasible in an industrial setting. But this was still very far off from the barcoding systems that we are used to today. It was RCA who helped to move the technology into that direction. Because although the Computer Identics Corporation barcodes were working, they were only able to store two digits worth of data. What RCA was working on would require much more. In 1966 they had attended a grocery industry meeting in which the barcode system had been discussed. This helped to show RCA that there was a need for the technology and pushed them into spending the money to develop the technology. 

It wasn’t until 1971 that RCA had developed something worth trying to sell. They had worked with grocery industry experts and others to come up with a standardized system that stored more information, was easy to print and reproduce, could be scanned from any angle, and could be read from a distance. RCA was working with the bull’s-eye system which was the circular printed pattern. They thought this was the best way to go. However during their long and extensive testing it was found that what made the codes readable from any angle, also made printing an issue. Because of the rounded print pattern, the ink could sometimes smear and when that happened it made the code unreadable. 

Industry competition in that day was as fierce as it is today. And with a new technology on the horizon that could possibly revolutionize an industry , many companies were involved. The two that stood out however were RCA and IBM, but IBM had a trump card. They had one of the original inventors on their staff. Back in the 1951 Norman Joseph Woodland took a job with IBM and in 1971 when RCA was taking the lead role in the barcode game IBM stepped up with their new entry into the barcode pool: the Universal Product Code. More commonly known as the UPC. 

The major benefit that the UPC had over the bull’s-eye code was that instead of a circular pattern, it was printed in a linear fashion. This meant that if ink did happen to smear during the printing process, it would smear in the direction of the lines, making the code still readable. However by this time many different companies who had all entered the game all had their own proprietary codes and designs. But at a time when business demanded standardization, IBM’s more readily readable and more easily produced UPC won out. But the code was not all that needed to be standardized. This meant that the machines reading the codes would also need to be standardized. So a movement was started to make sure this would take place. This meant that companies would have to give up on the ways they all designated and organized their products. It was not easy, but the amount of money that companies would save in almost every area eventually convinced them to do so. And in an effort to continue this trend a new Uniform Code Council (UCC) was formed.

Over the next few years the UPC code worked its way into almost every facet of the retail industry. Every store and manufacturer in the country has adopted the UPC. If they haven’t it is because they have adopted another form of coding, but it all has ties directly to the invention of the UPC. Every industry has some way of coding their product or parts of a process that they perform. It makes sense when you consider how everything ties into computers. By doing so things are easier tracked, inventoried and handled. This not only saves money, but obviously saves time, resources and manpower. Today you have many codes entering the mainstream. And with every code there has to be a system to read and manage the codes. 

The system created all those years ago never made any of the original inventors rich. But they had a major hand in changing the way a whole country, and even better yet, a whole world does business. There is not an area of business that is not somehow touched by barcodes. In 1992 Woodland was given the National Medal of Technology by President Bush. This may be the only official recognition given to Woodland. But he can stand tall knowing in his heart what he has done. He has changed the world of business forever in a way that no one else has or ever will. 

So where will barcodes take us? It is a simple assumption to make that we will see barcodes in many different products as time goes on. People have made them tatoos. People have changed their names to resemble their name converted to a barcode symbology. With technology getting ever smaller, and microchips being embedded in many different things, barcodes will surely follow them. When you consider the amount of data that can be stored in the string of lines, and where they can be placed it is not surprising to think of where they could end up. We have chips inserted in pets to track them and in pens to record when certain words are written. The data needs to be stored and converted. And not all this information is public domain. People are always looking for ways to keep things private in an age where more and more is being exposed. Maybe barcodes will play a role. Or maybe they will just be used in a more simple manner. Just a data recording method, much like they are today. Maybe the technology to read them continues to be available to everybody like today in common cell phones. What uses can you think of for these? I bet the possibilities are endless.

Barcodes, Barcodes and more Barcodes.

My upcoming story, The History (and Future) of the Barcode will be posted soon. I am introducing it this way because I am also in the process of implementing a barcode system on my sites as well. Select articles that I write are being published at a couple various select websites and publications. Because of this I will start including a scanable barcode along with every article I publish. This will allow for easier tracking by myself, as well as anyone who wants to can reach me or my sites by scanning the barcode with their mobile device (cellphone, etc..). Because these codes are becoming more readily available and useable by the masses, I see this as a sort of wave of the future. That may be a bit strong of a way to put it, but regardless they are catching on quickly. So I will implement them. I am always trying to be in-step with what is happening on the technology front and have done a good job of doing so throughout my life.

So.. my upcoming article will explain some of this as well as give you guys a decent review of the history of that wonderful little code. Also, start being on the lookout for these codes everywhere. Blackberry for example unveiled a program not too long ago, mid-summer, that was a barcode treasure hunt of sorts. They announced that they would put some 2D barcodes in various public venues such as summer concerts, large public gatherings, and sprouting events just to name a few. Scanning these barcodes with your Blackberry would either enter you into a contest, bring you to a special website, or automatically win you some sort of modest prize. It made people start to take notice. And because of this (and other various promotions) a couple applications started sprouting up on Blackberry Appworld and other places. So now that the software and technology is in place and available for many people to utilize, the codes can really start to be of some use to people.

Be on the lookout. At first I will just have some 2D barcodes on the site that just link to contact information as well as links to my websites and various articles I publish. But as time goes on these barcodes will start to become a bit more varied. And as I come across some barcodes that may be from other companies running contests or things of that nature I will either post the barcode here on the site, or give you a link to that barcode so you can go to the site and scan it there. So stay tuned. This could turn out to be a rather big deal. And I will do my best to keep you informed of anything that happens. Again... look for the Barcode article to be posted soon. Within the next couple of hours.

Why Video Games May Change The World.

Games of all kinds have been around for centuries. Since the beginning of the civilized world, people have played and used games for many different reasons. For relaxation, to pass the time, to best another person, to win money, and even to train knights and today, soldiers. So why is it that in today's world, video games get such a bad rap? Could it be that young children play them and act out what they see in the games? It shouldn't be, because this has been happening since the days of emperor Charlemagne. Is it because the designers and publishers are making money hand over fist selling games to young children that might be considered by some or many as content for adults? Or is it just because people just need someone to be the bad guy? The villain.

Regardless of how you look at it, or what popular opinion of government or watchdog groups may be, the fact is that video games are here to stay. Matter of fact as time goes on, they will become an ever increasing part of the fabric of our everyday lives. Just 5 short years ago 45.7 million homes had a video game console hooked up to their television set. That number has grown steadily over the years at a rate of about 18.5% per year! This according to a report released by The Nielsen Company. So if you think video games are going anywhere anytime soon, you have another thing coming! So where does this leave us? Well, it leaves us now trying to find a way to regulate the industry and insure that what is given to our children is something that they can handle. Aha! I almost had you there! See, this is actually the parents job! Many of these so-called "watchdog" groups have tried to petition the government (among other officials) to regulate the industry and to try and put a stop to alot of what the video game industry has been and has plans to release. But they are barking up the wrong tree if you ask me. If anything, these people should be ONLY trying to get ratings systems standardized throughout the industry. This is fine and something that I and many others would support. There is nothing wrong with someone putting a rating on content being sold so that people who may not be fully aware of what they may be buying will have some way to at least know that it is appropriate for whomever they may be buying it for. This action I applaud. And as long as they try to put a standard system in place then great. They have a start, and they have a rating system currently in place, but it is far from a standard across the board and across all related media and systems.

But this gets us away from the topic at hand and is a discussion best left for another day. However the rating system does play a part in the industry ingraining itself within our daily lives. We as a society must realize first and foremost that what some may see as escapism and a way for some people to isolate is actually more of a learning experience and a way for people to (maybe unwittingly) train their body and mind to carry out tasks in an efficient and adept manner. This action also helps to change a persons outlook from negative to positive in more ways than one. And this is what I would like to expound on next.

Many experts and scientists have undergone many hours of experiments and studies over this topic of late. Mostly I suppose because of the press that it has received over the last few years with regards to children acting out game-like fantasies and dehumanizing the world around them. There is an overwhelming thought that children who grow up playing violent games have a tendency to become violent themselves. And that they have a tendency to see the people around them as a non valuable asset, meaning another's life has no value to that child because just as in the game where they just finished killing hundreds of people with no consequence - the same holds true in real life. Well.. this is not true. Regardless of what people think, it has been shown that children do realize they are playing a game. And they can separate the game world from the real world. And without getting into the whole psychological debate because I would not last, I believe most of that falls upon the parent and the environment that child grows up in. If the child lives in a loving environment where his/her parents openly and frequently acknowledge the real world around them and the child is taught the difference, these problems do no exist. It is only when there is an environment where the child is not cared for or the love that would normally accompany a child through his or her early years growing up is vacant that you can end up with a situation where the kid ends up losing grip on reality and acts out game-like fantasies. And even then I would not be sure that the kid would "lose grip" on reality. I would argue that the child knows what he is undertaking, but just does not care. And more so because of what he sees on the evening news or in his neighborhood then because of what he experiences in a violent video game.

I went a bit deeper into that thought then I wanted to but it serves to show the negative result of what a child's environment has on him or her. More to the point of positive and negative. Video games really have a positive effect on peoples outlooks on life. Or they can anyway. Take a normal person doing a normal task at work. They perform this task over and over for a few times and every time, they fail. And they look at it that way. The overwhelming outlook on this by the worker is, "I failed at this task". However if you have a similar situation in a video game, where a person continues to try the same task over and over again yet cannot complete, it they do not think that they "failed". The thought in this situation is, "I have not succeeded yet". And this is a very positive change. So you can see the value of having a "gamers outlook" on life. And this is what researchers are trying to find ways to convey into the "real world".

Many companies have over the years, tried to use video games to assist in training their employees. Although they have not found a sure fire way to do this successfully, maybe they should take a page from the US Army's training manual. Years ago the US Army realized the popularity of First Person Shooters among kids at the perfect recruitment age. So they spent some money, did some research, and came up with their grand idea. They developed a video game that would not only be a top notch video game graphically and mechanically (where it counts), but also does a wonderful job teaching the player about the Army way of thinking along the way. When playing this game for a length of time, you do become genuinely interested in possibly joining the Army. Or at least you do if your a teenager almost ready to finish high school. But regardless of what the percentages of kids signing up because of the game are, the game succeeds where other similar projects have failed. The Army spent the time and money to do proper research to develop a game that got everything right where it mattered. They realized that their target audience was intelligent and had alot of experience in the field. And this is true of almost all gamers. They know the game industry. And today's young children are taught about technology at an increasingly young age. So by the time kids get to the age where advertising or a training style game will reach them, they are very smart and know what they want. So if anyone tries to utilize this method to reach a target group in this demographic they better not make any mistakes. Because these kids will spot them a mile away!

The point here is that video games in more ways than one have become a part of our everyday lives. And they look to continue along this path. With all the money being spent in various research and studies. And the millions being spent in development that has nothing at all to do with the leading game companies, it looks as if we will start to see games enter arenas that we have never expected them to enter. And we now enter an age where the three major game systems all have motion control and cameras to add a myriad of different features. And they have all found ways to include those in your family that never played games before. Video games are becoming a complete family experience. So over the next couple years, we will see changes in the industry; some that are expected and some that nobody could have ever guessed. The question is, how much will gaming enter YOUR life? Will you change to meet gaming halfway? Or will the games adjust to meet society somewhere in the middle?