According to “Barcode birthday: 60 years since patent”, the article is about the 60 years anniversary of barcode patent which nowadays it becomes ubiquitous after the first time when it was put in the packet of chewing gum in an Ohio supermarket and scanned in 1974.
When I was young, I noticed the barcode on the packet of many products and doubted about how the barcode reader works with barcode, how the machine knew the price of products when barcode was scanned at the checkpoint paid gateways. I knew that they use the red laser beam to read the barcode information out.
When I grew up, I studied in computer engineering. I realized that the red beam laser that barcode reader emission out was reading signal which is the shaking laser beam from left to right and right to left as many times per second. After the reader can read barcode number, the computer will use it to gather the information of the products such as product name and product price from databases and then the computer will display the name and the price of product on the screen to show the price.
Nowadays, we have the new generation of barcode which we call QR code, but it is a bit difference from the traditional barcode which is able kept the data morn than the old one.
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Reference
Barcode birthday: 60 years since patent. (2012, October 6). BBC News Technology, Retrieved October 8, 2012 from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19849141
Barcode birthday: 60 years since patent. (2012, October 6). BBC News Technology, Retrieved October 8, 2012 from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19849141
After reading, my head tell me that Bus might talk about our bar-code, DNA. Although most of inheritance are good for our descendants, some of them are unhealthy, especially family medical history. If some parent develop Diabetes, their children are risky to develop the same disease more than others who their parent do not become this disease. As Buddhist, there is some words to praise which is "we have family's garma."
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I think he is talking about barcode that is part of some products from supermarket and help us in the moment of buying goods. The barcodes are in our bills also(electricity, water, telephone and others bills.
ReplyDeleteI never stopped to think how was the beginning of barcode. It is interesting!
After reading your post,I checked the things around me.Most of them are books or magazines and all of them have barcodes! I still remember when I saw barcode for the first time. I wondered how these thin or thick black lines could give a lot of information. I think it is a great invention. I also wonder why there are always numbers below barcodes. Do you happen to know what these numbers mean?
ReplyDeleteI have ever learned what the meaning of numbers below barcodes are but I am now almost forget. I remember only that they represent a country, which a product come from, and manufacturer of that product.
DeleteI didn’t know barcode patented 60 years ago. It was very interesting.
DeleteAnyway, I sometimes tell my Thai friend who want to eat real Japanese snack to check the barcode. But AKI-KO (あきこ) seemed to put 49 barcode’s seal on their packages. This means coming from Japan. However, I thought that it was Thai company because I had never heard AKI-KO in Japan, so it seemed that these seals were fake. Now, I don’t know whether AKI-KO use 49 barcode seal or not. Or AKI-KO might be Japanese company.
Country Code of Barcode
Japan 450-459 or 490-499, Thailand 885
Reference
List of GS1 country codes, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GS1_country_codes)
Mori, you make me curious about where AKI-KO originate from. According to its website (http://www.aki-ko.com/eng/profile.html), it is indeed Thailand's brand. Also, I did some more research about its parent company which is also Thai. Therefore, I am definitely sure that it is Thai company.
DeleteHowever, I have no idea about the number 49 on barcode.
That company might order or make their products in Japan before they import it to Thailand, so that is why their products also have Janpanese's barcode on its.
DeleteIt's very interesting thing to know. You are kind of curious person that is a good thing, you learn the new things always.
ReplyDeleteDo you think it will more develope in the future? Nowadays every product has their own barcodes, so it is easy to know about the price and don't need to wait long time to pay. In France, customers can pay at the machine by themselves, just pass barcode of product to the machine and it will calculate all then they can pay with money or credit card.
In Japan there is also such a system as in France at some supermarkets. I think the shop owners want to reduce labor costs with the system, but many curious people, especially children try to use it, and make some mistakes, and as a result, there is always a shop clerk there to help the customers.
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