Barcode (also bar code) is a representation of information (usually dark ink on a light background to create high and low reflectance which is converted to 1s and 0s). Originally, barcodes stored data in the widths and spacings of printed parallel lines, but today they also come in patterns of dots, concentric circles, and text codes hidden within images.

Barcodes can be read by optical scanners called barcode readers or scanned from an image by special software. Barcodes are widely used to implement Auto ID Data Capture (AIDC) systems that improve the speed and accuracy of computerdata entry. An advantage over other methods of AIDC is that it is less expensive to implement.

It will cost about US$0.005 to implement a barcode compared to passive RFID which still costs about US$0.07 to US$0.30 per tag.

Usage : Applications for the following trades and more, much more...

• Textile, Mobile, Computer / Peripherals, Electrical / Electronics, Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, Grocery Stores, Super Markets, Ware Houses, Hotel / Restaurant and room Management
• Any kind of Manufacturing
• Iron and Steel Industries
• Jewellery Showroom and Manufacturers
• Automobiles Service and spare parts dealer and distributor

History

The first patent for a bar code type product (US Patent #2,612,994) was issued to inventors Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver on October 7, 1952. Its implementation was made possible through the work of Raymond Alexander and Frank Stietz, two engineers with Sylvania (who were also granted a patent), as a result of their work on a system to identify railroad cars. It was not until 1966 that barcodes were put to commercial use and they were not commercially successful until the 1980s.

While traditionally barcode encoding schemes represented only numbers, newer symbologies add new characters such as uppercase letters, or even the complete ASCII character set. The drive to encode more information in combination with the space requirements of simple barcodes led to the development of matrix codes (a type of 2D barcode), which do not consist of bars but rather a grid of square cells.

Stacked barcodes are a compromise between true 2D barcodes and linear codes (also known as 1D barcodes), and are formed by taking a traditional linear symbology and placing it in an envelope that allows multiple rows.