New York Times Notes UPC Barcode's 35th Birthday

The Times takes an interesting look at the UPC code, grandaddy of all modern barcodes. Thanks again, George Laurer!

Bar Codes & beer. Together at last...

What can I say...

Barcode Game That Will Drive You Mad

For a few minutes at least. Gregory Weir's Bars of Black and White is a barcode-based 'escape from a locked room' game that challenges you to scan your way to freedom.

Scritchy-scratchy hand drawn illustrations and figuring out how to kill a big spider make it a whimsical way to waste some time on the company dime. Tell your boss that you're researching auto-ID and real world barcode implementation. That's what I did.

Free desktop wallpaper images

As part of the relaunch of our humble website, we've added a growing collection of free wallpaper images you can download.

So all of you bored with your current desktop background can grab one of our stone & metal, azalea & rhodi photos. They're great as cell phone wallpaper too.

Set a bookmark because there will be a lot more free photos and artwork to come.

Happy Birthday, UPC!

At 8:01 am on June 26th, 1974, the very first ever UPC (Universal Product Code) was scanned at Marsh's Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The item? A 10 pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum.

Visitors Can Now Use QR Barcodes to Navigate Port Townsend, Washington

"PORT TOWNSEND -- Visitors to Port Townsend can now scan the city with more than just the naked eye.

Last week, a handful of barcodes -- which literally can be scanned -- were placed in locations throughout town in what's called the Way Finder Project.

Using a cell phone with Internet access and a camera, you can walk up to a code, scan it and pull up a Web site about the location."

That good ol' "Global Supply Chain"

It's not called a global supply chain for nothing. Shipping and distribution are assumed to be international these days. All over the map. Worldwide.

To that end we're now whispering about barcodes in Albanian, Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Vietnamese.

Now that's global. And you just know there are barcodes lurking around in there.