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 occasions per day the world over as round 70,000 gadgets are bought every second.
It has turn into so built-in within the purchasing expertise that it’s simple to overlook how a lot the know-how revolutionised retail by dashing up the checkout course of and giving retailers the power 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 specialises in digital tagging.
Chewing gum to fruit
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Barcodes have 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 know-how and strikes in direction of its commercialisation started.
On April 3, 1973 the usual to establish merchandise was agreed by numerous massive retailers and meals corporations. It later grew to become referred to 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 organisation Global Standard 1 manages the barcode system and counts about two million corporations as members.
It gives corporations with a novel “global trade item number” for every product, which is then translated into the barcode. Each agency should pay an annual price based mostly on their gross sales, as much as practically $5,000 per 12 months.
From bars to QRs
But the common-or-garden barcode will quickly give approach to one other commonplace developed by the organisation, stated Renaud de Barbuat and Didier Veloso, the respective heads of GS1 Global and GS1 France.
The new commonplace, based mostly on QR, or Quick Response code, will likely be launched round 2027.
If barcodes have been in comparison with jail bars by critics of the over-commercialisation of society, the Chinese recreation 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 info as they’re learn each horizontally, like barcodes, and vertically.
Instead of getting to look a database for info to associate with a product, the QR code can combine info instantly, such because the composition of the product and recycling directions.
GS1 believes transferring 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 will likely be accessible to shoppers in addition to retailers.
As smartphones can learn QR codes, they’re a straightforward approach to ship folks to web sites to get extra info, resulting in their widespread adoption by corporations, artists and even museums. They are even utilized by cost methods.
But barcodes are more likely to stay in place for years to return because the world steadily transitions to QR codes.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com