The barcode, the renowned identification system for commercial products, will be 50 years old in 2023 and will gradually be replaced by another identification system: the QR code, which contains more information.
The vertical lines are scanned 6 billion times a day worldwide. Every second, 70,000 products go through a checkout.
A true “product identity document, the barcode gives professionals access to other functionalities” such as inventory management, transport and traceability, explains AFP Laurence Vallana, director of SES Imagotag in France, a company specialized in labeling electronics.
tutti frutti chewing gum
Although the barcode was first patented by Americans Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver in 1952, it wasn’t really perfected and commercialized until 1971, spearheaded by American engineer George Laurer.
On April 3, 1973, after consultation between major industrialists and distributors, the barcode became the system used to identify the mass consumer products that would be marketed in the following decades. It was then named “EAN 13” (European article number and 13 by the number of digits it contains).
The first article to be “scanned” with his barcode, on June 26, 1974 in Ohio, was a package of tutti-frutti gum, on display at the National Museum of U.S. History in Washington.
Source: DN
