The Future of Barcoding: Part 2
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Posted in: Barcodes
The Future of Barcoding Continued...
Last time I talked about this it was mainly to address what was then the growing mantra that the future of barcoding wasn’t barcoding at all—it was RFID. I think almost everybody now recognizes that RFID is not going to replace barcodes.
There will remain, at least in the near term, many applications in which barcodes will be replaced with—better barcodes. A glimpse into the evolution of barcodes bears this out.
The Evolution of Barcodes- Modern barcodes have higher data capacity and are more fault-tolerant, whether due to reproduction inaccuracies or post-production damage. The evolution of related technologies has enhanced barcode development. For example, greater computer processing capability has made imager-based scanners a possibility, and they in turn have made 2D barcodes a reality.
Modern barcodes also have increasing functionality. Most of us who travel frequently have already encountered barcode-based boarding passes. Some airlines are now emailing those barcodes to our mobile phones and the symbols can be scanned right from the screen. No paper, no trees.
New Benefits of Barcodes- Today’s high school seniors who go to college fairs looking for a university are often instructed to bring their personal barcode with them [Seattle College Bound Examiner]. Many recruiters no longer want interested students to identify themselves and their school dossier on paper—they want to scan their barcode. This trend will only increase and it makes lots of sense. But there’s much more.
Researchers at the University of Rhode Island have invented a way of using the barcode label to detect temperature fluctuations on meat products, and to signal, through a color change, if the product has encountered temperatures in which the meat could spoil. [NBC News]
The Next Generation of Barcodes- Scientists at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia have developed a 2D barcode with high enough capacity to store video clips, voice recordings or pages of text, and multimedia content such as ring tones and even games. [Indiatimes] This opens the door to whole new possibilities where portability and storage capacity are essential—for example tourist information could be stored in relatively small images, accessible via a camera mobile phone. Scanning the symbol, the tourist could listen to commentary in their native language. No bulky recorders with headphones, no printed material, no tour guide you can’t hear or understand.
What else is possible? Send in your ideas! What else is being done?
Tell us what you know! Got a great idea you’d like to see developed?
