PARIS – The patch of irregular vertical traces that revolutionized testing on the grocery store and facilitated the globalization of retail is popping 50.
But because the barcode celebrates its birthday on Monday, its days could be numbered because it faces competitors from the youthful QR code, the information-filled squares utilized in smartphones.
The trademark beep as a product is scanned is heard about six billion instances per day the world over as round 70,000 gadgets are offered every second.
It has develop into so built-in within the procuring expertise that it’s straightforward to overlook how a lot the expertise revolutionized retail by rushing up the checkout course of and giving retailers the flexibility to hint merchandise and higher handle stock.
The barcode not solely identifies a product, however “gives professionals in stores access to other functionalities”, stated Laurence Vallana, head of France de SES-Imagotag, an organization that focuses on digital tagging.
Chewing gum to fruit
Barcodes had been initially patented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver within the United States in 1952.
But it wasn’t till practically twenty years later, in 1971, that US engineer George Laurer perfected the expertise and strikes in direction of its commercialization started.
On April 3, 1973 the usual to determine merchandise was agreed by a variety of giant retailers and meals firms. It later turned generally known as EAN-13, which stands for European Article Number and the variety of digits within the barcode.
The following 12 months, on June 26 within the US state of Ohio, the primary product was scanned: a pack of chewing gum that’s now within the National Museum of American History in Washington.
Today, the non-governmental group Global Standard 1 manages the barcode system and counts about two million corporations as members.
It offers firms with a novel “global trade item number” for every product, which is then translated into the barcode. Each agency should pay an annual charge based mostly on their gross sales, as much as practically $5,000 per 12 months.
From bars to QRs
But the standard barcode will quickly give technique to one other customary developed by the group, stated Renaud de Barbuat and Didier Veloso, the respective heads of GS1 Global and GS1 France.
The new customary, based mostly on QR, or Quick Response code, might be launched round 2027.
If barcodes have been in comparison with jail bars by critics of the over-commercialization of society, the Chinese sport Go with its white and black items on a sq. board was the inspiration for the QR code’s Japanese creator, Masahiro Hara.
Developed in 1994, QR codes can maintain far more data as they’re learn each horizontally, like barcodes, and vertically.
Instead of getting to go looking a database for data to associate with a product, the QR code can combine data straight, such because the composition of the product and recycling directions.
GS1 believes shifting to the QR code format permits the sharing of much more details about merchandise in addition to content material, enabling new makes use of that might be accessible to shoppers in addition to retailers.
As smartphones can learn QR codes, they’re a straightforward technique to ship folks to web sites to get further data, resulting in their widespread adoption by firms, artists and even museums. They are even utilized by cost programs.
But barcodes are prone to stay in place for years to come back because the world regularly transitions to QR codes. —Agence France-Presse
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
