Barcode
A mobile device with a built-in camera, such as a smartphone, can function as the latter type of barcode reader using specialized application software and is suitable for both 1D and 2D codes.
Developed by General Telephone and Electronics (GTE) and called KarTrak ACI (Automatic Car Identification), this scheme involved placing colored stripes in various combinations on steel plates which were affixed to the sides of railroad rolling stock.
Two plates were used per car, one on each side, with the arrangement of the colored stripes encoding information such as ownership, type of equipment, and identification number.
[3] The plates were read by a trackside scanner located, for instance, at the entrance to a classification yard, while the car was moving past.
[6][7] In June 1974, Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio used a scanner made by Photographic Sciences Corporation to scan the Universal Product Code (UPC) barcode on a pack of Wrigley's chewing gum.
[8][5] QR codes, a specific type of 2D barcode, rose in popularity in the second decade of the 2000s due to the growth in smartphone ownership.
On 20 October 1949 Woodland and Silver filed a patent application for "Classifying Apparatus and Method", in which they described both the linear and bull's eye printing patterns, as well as the mechanical and electronic systems needed to read the code.
The company eventually commissioned a report on the idea, which concluded that it was both feasible and interesting, but that processing the resulting information would require equipment that was some time off in the future.
Immediately after receiving his master's degree from MIT in 1959, he started work at GTE Sylvania and began addressing the problem.
[13] The railway project had failed, but a toll bridge in New Jersey requested a similar system so that it could quickly scan for cars that had purchased a monthly pass.
Finally, Kal Kan asked the Sylvania team for a simpler (and cheaper) version which they could put on cases of pet food for inventory control.
In 1967, with the railway system maturing, Collins went to management looking for funding for a project to develop a black-and-white version of the code for other industries.
[11] As its first innovations, Computer Identics moved from using incandescent light bulbs in its systems, replacing them with helium–neon lasers, and incorporated a mirror as well, making it capable of locating a barcode up to a meter (3 feet) in front of the scanner.
This made the entire process much simpler and more reliable, and typically enabled these devices to deal with damaged labels, as well, by recognizing and reading the intact portions.
Computer Identics Corporation installed one of its first two scanning systems in the spring of 1969 at a General Motors (Buick) factory in Flint, Michigan.
The other scanning system was installed at General Trading Company's distribution center in Carlstadt, New Jersey to direct shipments to the proper loading bay.
RCA, which had purchased the rights to the original Woodland patent, attended the meeting and initiated an internal project to develop a system based on the bullseye code.
In the mid-1970s the NAFC established the Ad-Hoc Committee for U.S. Supermarkets on a Uniform Grocery-Product Code to set guidelines for barcode development.
IBM marketing specialist Alec Jablonover remembered that the company still employed Woodland, and he established a new facility in Research Triangle Park to lead development.
Barcodes were printed on small pieces of adhesive paper, and attached by hand by store employees when they were adding price tags.
Neither wanted to move first and results were not promising for the first couple of years, with Business Week proclaiming "The Supermarket Scanner That Failed" in a 1976 article.
A wide range of hardware is manufactured for use in barcode systems by such manufacturers as Datalogic, Intermec, HHP (Hand Held Products), Microscan Systems, Unitech, Metrologic, PSC, and PANMOBIL, with the best known brand of handheld scanners and mobile computers being produced by Symbol,[citation needed] a division of Motorola.
They are also used to facilitate the separation and indexing of documents that have been imaged in batch scanning applications, track the organization of species in biology,[22] and integrate with in-motion checkweighers to identify the item being weighed in a conveyor line for data collection.
Barcoded tickets (which may be printed by the customer on their home printer, or stored on their mobile device) allow the holder to enter sports arenas, cinemas, theatres, fairgrounds, and transportation, and are used to record the arrival and departure of vehicles from rental facilities etc.
Barcodes are widely used in shop floor control applications software where employees can scan work orders and track the time spent on a job.
A mobile device with a built-in camera might be used to read the pattern and browse the linked website, which can help a shopper find the best price for an item in the vicinity.
Based on the verification results, the production process can be adjusted to print higher quality barcodes that will scan down the supply chain.
Bar code validation may include evaluations after use (and abuse) testing such as sunlight, abrasion, impact, moisture, etc.
[citation needed] As of 2011 the ISO workgroup JTC1 SC31 was developing a Direct Part Marking (DPM) quality standard: ISO/IEC TR 29158.
Barcode scanners are relatively low cost and extremely accurate compared to key-entry, with only about 1 substitution error in 15,000 to 36 trillion characters entered.
